‘I think that’s what comedy is you always have the chance to lose, and that’s what makes the victories so thrilling.’ Comedian Phil Wang Wang likens his addiction to doing stand-up to a gambler’s compulsion to keep rolling the dice.

He has written about the “central delusion” that makes comedians tick: an insistence that even when one audience doesn’t find you funny at all, there’s always another chance to redeem yourself in a cascade of laughs with the next crowd. However, stand-up remains Wang’s first love, and he has found something that always draws him back to the stage. He’s since gone on to be a regular on UK comedy TV ( Live at the Apollo, 8 out of 10 Cats Does Countdown, and a hilarious if unsuccessful season on Taskmasters) and penned a memoir, Sidesplitter, about growing up mixed race and the cultural differences between Malaysia and the United Kingdom. He found almost immediate success, winning Chortle’s Student Comedian of the Year in 2010 and heading up the college’s fabled sketch comedy troupe, Footlights. He enjoyed trying to make his classmates laugh at school and began pursuing comedy seriously while studying engineering at Cambridge.

“It gives you a stage, and a set amount of time to talk, and everyone is expected to listen to you, and then you leave.” “The thing about stand-up is that it gives you a set of parameters and rules,” he says.

Wang was drawn to comedy as a way to circumvent his social awkwardness. “I think I’m being very big and silly and letting myself go, but when I look at the footage, it’s just like a normal guy I’m naturally quite unexpressive.” “I realised recently that I often look quite serious (when performing),” he says. Phil Wang loves the challenge of entertaining an audience with nothing but your wit. But he says sillier means bigger, and with his new show Wang In There, Baby!, he’s started playing around with a more animated style. His stand-up, including Netflix special Philly Philly Wang Wang, has displayed an assured but low-key delivery. The 33-year-old, who is of British and Malaysian heritage, has carved out a reputation for finding fresh angles on the familiar. “I think people, including myself, are kind of yearning for silliness again.” “We’re coming out of a period of great seriousness, and also seriousness in stand-up, comedy and satire,” he says over a Zoom call as he tucks into a bowl of breakfast porridge. As he prepares to visit Australia for the Just for Laughs festival, Phil Wang is ready to embrace the silly streak that runs through his mostly thoughtful comedy.

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