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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Ryan Gilbey

‘Audiences no longer laugh if you call their town crap’: can Phil Wang heal divided Britain?

Comedian Phil Wang sits at a wooden table, resting his chin on his hand, with framed photographs on a wood-panelled wall behind him
‘Forgive me if I take no comfort from the jealous face of death itself!’ … Wang in Goodcup cafe, London. Photograph: Sarah Lee/The Guardian

Born in Stoke-on-Trent to a British mother and Chinese-Malaysian father then raised in Borneo and educated in Brunei, Bath and Cambridge, Phil Wang – or “Old Wang”, as he refers to himself mock-imperiously on stage – has certainly been around. Today, the 36-year-old standup with the pleasantly befuddled air is in a cafe near his home in London, wearing high-waisted baggy black trousers, a blue shirt, salmon-coloured New Balances and a baseball cap bearing the word “Chump”. Most significantly, he is sporting a moustache.

Wang went public with his face furniture two years ago but the upcoming tour of his new show, Uh Oh, will mark the first time he has taken it out on the road. Is the tache here for good? “Well, I’ve got five minutes of standup on it now,” he says over coffee. “Until I come up with a better five minutes, it’s staying.”

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