MICF 2018 review: Phil Wang hits his stride

COMEDY FESTIVAL
PHIL WANG ★★★★
Kinabalu, Melbourne Town Hall, until April 22

Phil Wang has a fine comedic pedigree: he was president of the Cambridge Footlights society and an award-winning student comedian. With Kinabalu – named after the city in Malaysia where he was born – he’s really hit his straps as a comic.

Wang delivers an hour of clever and confident stand-up that abounds in ludicrous wit in which he unerringly turns the race card into an ace card.

Riffing on race is a precarious art, but Wang doesn’t miss a trick – from smart and counterintuitive comedy that draws on his own mixed heritage, to lowbrow Asian caricature of the most un-PC kind.

His material cycles dorky shtick and running gags around elaborate digressions, and some of his more in-depth jokes – including a rather vivid take on male feminism – build to irrepressible laughter.

One of a crop of talented comedians to emerge from the UK recently, Wang is in hot form this year.