With a Netflix special, bestselling memoir, multiple podcasts, and a tour set to go global, Phil Wang has gone from a recognisable face on UK TV to one of the fastest-rising international comics around. His new show, The Real Hero in All This, highlights his ability to blend incisive, informed comedy with utter silliness in an hour that features explorations of race and multiculturalism, social media and the complexities of parental expression alongside hilarious chunks about nipple freedom and bellends. It’s with good reason that Wang is everywhere right now.
Wang returns to the Melbourne International Comedy Festival at the end of what he refers to as ‘the thing’. The thing, of course, is the pandemic, and Wang marvels as much at Melbourne’s exquisite coffee as he does at the city’s ability to withstand the world’s longest lockdowns. He commiserates before skewering the UK’s response to the situation, which he calls ‘less lockdown-y’ and led by groups comparable to a death cult. The ‘thing’ looms large in this show as Wang dissects everything from doom scrolling and closed borders to the apparent helpfulness of banging on pots and pans outside apartment windows.
He doesn’t linger on the pandemic, though. There’s too much other stuff to get to, like why Aussies find it necessary to shorten serious words into cute abbreviations, and why white people are so utterly terrified of reheated rice. There’s a funny and affecting bit about a reunion with his dad, and a deep dive into the finer points of life in the UK as compared to Borneo where he grew up. All of this, of course, fits around a lengthy piece on penis measurement.
As it must. In proper Wang style, the comic gets us laughing with dick jokes while building connections through intimate, engaging storytelling. The Real Hero in All This is inspired work from a comic who just gets better and better.