Review of the comic's new tour

Things are going all right for old Wang. He’s got himself a moustache, property and a houseplant or two as he advances smoothly towards middle age.

And maybe, he fears, his newly settled life will come with the shift towards the political right that is presumed to come with age. After all, as he sagely notes, it’s much easier to be a conservative when you’ve actually got something worth conserving. He’s certainly a supporter of the gentrification sweeping his corner of Peckham, South London.

But Wang is not one for putting too much of himself into his comedy, and there is little introspection here – his current circumstances are just a foundation for his arch commentary, sardonic reflections and self-satisfied wordplay.

Complaining about cyclists might put him very much in the ‘reactionary newspaper columnist’ category, but the inventively precise way he describes their perilous existence on the roads creates amusing images. His complaint about the verboten ‘coloured person’ being linguistically identical to ‘person of colour’ has also been pointed out before, by people with less ingenuous motives than he. 

He deftly navigates some of the hypocrisies of wokeness, such as corporations hitching their wagons to Pride as vacuous virtue-signalling, or wondering why some artists get a free pass with problematic subject matter from their past, when others are cancelled. 

The intent is primarily tongue-in-cheek – he’s more likely to talk about the urban myth that a sneeze is one-eighth of an orgasm than he is to make overt social points – though his takedown of the stereotypes in David Bowie’s China Girl comes with edge, as well as a fun impression. Just wait till Wang finds out about The Thin White Duke’s flirtations with full-on fascism in the 1970s.

Meanwhile,  the British-born, Malaysian-raised comic’s jokes about being Chinese himself hit a peak with a routine about him putting off an autism diagnosis that likens national traits to neurodiversity.

Having no great drive behind Uh-Oh beyond a series of witty vignettes is to the show’s disadvantage, but plenty of the routines here sparkle with sardonic wit and a droll way of expressing things, all delivered from Wang’s position of aloof detachment. 

• Phil Wang is on tour with Uh-Oh until May. Phil ​Wang tour dates

Review date: 28 Sep 2026
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Soho Theatre Walthamstow