Wang in There, Baby!

Phil Wang’s comedy often hinges on the mild, specific absurdities of national temperament, and he finds his ideal target in the British terror of reheating leftover rice. Captured under the soft glow of London’s candlelit Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at Shakespeare’s Globe, his sophomore Netflix hour is a relaxed, analytical look at the differences between his two homes, Malaysia and the UK. He spent much of 2024 riding the wave of high-profile bookings, including a brief, memorable turn dancing on a table in the movie Wonka, but here he is content to slow down, letting his signature deadpan style carry a set that feels like a lecture by a very funny, slightly exhausted academic.

The 61-minute special finds Wang contrasting British paranoia with American excess, most notably in a bit comparing the UK’s strict over-the-counter limits on ibuprofen to buying loose tubs of a thousand pills at a US Costco. He also examines octopus intelligence, the versatility of the word “slippers”, and his own mixed-race upbringing in Borneo with a Chinese-Malaysian father and a mother from Stoke-on-Trent. Directed by Andy Devonshire, the show relies less on rapid-fire punchlines and more on Wang’s gift for rhythmic, patient storytelling.