Sidesplitter: How To Be From Two Worlds At Once

Product Information

Phil Wang, Alex Horne (4 September 2018). Phil Wang Interview Taskmaster S7 - Dave (Video). UKTV. Event occurs at 1:37 – via YouTube. For now, Wang says there is mainly joy and relief that he can perform again. The past 18 months has made him realise how much he needs comedy. “I just felt so rudderless,” he admits. “I hadn’t realised how much I use standup to process my own thoughts. I started having weird dreams and going a bit nuts because I wasn’t processing my thoughts in that way any more.” In the chapter, After Connie, SuChin Park has made it clear that she wouldn't have been able to break into the business of news at all had it not been for those before her, such as Connie Chung. Connie Chung paved the way for news stations to want to hire their own versions of her, a professional, classy Asian woman who could hold out next to an older white male so that that news station could be considered progressive, and forward-thinking. In other words, it was tokenism. This time, it worked to the Asian women's advantage.

Phil Wang review – an irresistible set of smart and silly Phil Wang review – an irresistible set of smart and silly

A really fascinating, funny look at how growing up with a white British mother and a Malasian father has helped shape Phil Wang's views on family, food and race among other things. This book definitely made me laugh and I really wish I could be at Phil Wang's event at Cheltenham Literature festival because I would love to hear more from him. The structure of the book is a great balance between facts and observations alongside humour and personal opinions. I definitely learned a lot as well as laughing out loud at various moments. I like how this book is marketed as 'not a memoir' but each section comes from a very personal point of view. As the book approaches the 2020’s, it explores the highs and lows of the 2010 decade complete with the whiplash as we pivoted away from a “post-racial” America to, well, not. I know now not to eat before a standup gig or TV show . Your brain’s not working as fast after you eat. I’m slower, more tired. It’s similar to how you feel post-coital, right? Postprandial and post-coital are very similar because, as far as your body is concerned, it’s mission accomplished for today. Nothing else needs to be achieved: you’ve eaten and you’ve procreated – you’re smashing this! Go to bed, you’ve earned it. Of course, as a comedian, that’s when the working day starts, but your body doesn’t know. Hachette imprint Hodder Studio recently published Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith's Inside No 9: The Scripts, Tom Allen's memoir No Shame and last week put out Pippa Evans's self-help book based around improvisation, Improv Your Life. Titles from Ellie Taylor and Sukh Ojla are due out later this year.After moving to Bath at 16, Wang became president of the Footlights at Cambridge University. He reflects upon his experiences as a Eurasian man in the book, examining the contrasts between Eastern and Western cultures and delving into Britain and Malaysia's shared history, alighting on topics ranging from food, family, cultural cachet and assimilation, to empire, colonialism and soft power. Being half British, half Malaysian my circumstances are noteworthy… one might even say interesting… my parents, my heritage, my cultural identity - and as the mixed race, multicultural experience is becoming more and more common with each subsequent generation of our human species, my observations of that aspect of my life is worth writing about… I think…” I’ll get absolutely crucified for this, but I still don’t entirely get yorkshire puddings. It’s just bread in a bowl shape. Bread as a gravy cup.

Sidesplitter: How To Be From Two Worlds At Once eBook : Wang

There’s something magical about clams cooked in a sauce of onions, parsley and white wine. It’s so easy, but it looks so impressive.It has something for everyone, politics, music, movies, tv, sports and FOOD. Anything related to the intersection of pop culture and being an Asian American in this country. This is quite a comprehensive coffee-table book on the history of Asian – and specifically (mainly) East, Southeast and South Asian – Americans, and it's full of essays about what happened in the "culture" during the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s, with a big segment on time before 1990s and a teeny section on what should be taken into consideration in the 2020s and beyond. Any amount of time spent with Phil Wang is never enough. I've been watching his comedy ever since he slid into guest spots on 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown and British panel show podcasts. His style of humour is understated but insightful, and it was wonderful to see him develop a more complex narrative in Sidesplitter. It's not a memoir, he makes that clear from the beginning, then eases up. Okay, it's kind of a memoir. Phil uses his British-Malaysian lived experience to discuss contemporary relationships to identity, family, history, race, and cultural belonging. His comedy helps to avoid sentimentality, but it's also grounded in enough perception that there's levity even in the heaviest moments. This, for Wang, is what he loves about standup. One time, after a gig in London, a white middle-class couple from Essex came up to him – and the comedians Pierre Novellie and Nish Kumar – and said they had enjoyed the show in the main, “but enough of the race stuff, eh?” Wang found the comment, and the ensuing discussion, enlightening. In Malaysia, everyone had talked about race all the time: that’s what happens in a country that is highly racially diverse, where the largest ethnic group – the Malays – make up only half the population. In the UK, where 80% of the population is white British, the subject can remain more of a taboo.

Sidesplitter: How to Be from Two Worlds at Once (Audio

I listened to the audiobook read by Phil, as is my custom with books written by comedians, and once again I'd have to recommend it, although I can see the appeal of having his face staring at me from my bookshelf.

On 4 July 2018 it was announced that Wang would be one of the contestants in series 7 of Taskmaster. [22] Tasks he won included 'Make the best noise' and 'Most surprisingly beautiful thing'. I hadn’t realised how much I use standup to process my own thoughts’: Phil Wang. Photograph: Pål Hansen/The Observer

Phil Wang: ‘It was a shock to find out how Asian I was’ Phil Wang: ‘It was a shock to find out how Asian I was’

For my money, the best noodles in London are at Xi’an Impression by the Arsenal stadium. They have really amazing hand-pulled noodles with big pieces of beef, but they also do really good dim sum and very cheap corkage. While most liberals have an entirely understandable discomfort about colonialism, Wang has a more pragmatic approach. Malaysia – a nation that wouldn’t exist without the British Empire - came out of it better than most. And, unfashionably, Wang admits to pride about his British side of his heritage.‘Why wouldn’t you be proud of all that influence and power’ the UK once wielded, he asks. The book itself is an interesting look at the differences in culture between the UK and Malaysia, and how despite all the talk of multicultural societies there still seems to be a desire to pigeonhole people as coming from a particular place. And a place that fits perceptions about their name or skin colour - the where are you really from question. Guide, British Comedy. "Series 7, Episode 1 (Bleed The Radiators)– Pappy's Flatshare Slamdown". British Comedy Guide.

Find Live comedy

With the blurb and introduction indicating that this was more essays than memoir, I'd hoped that Wang would have some funny and interesting things to say. And as it turned out, he had some interesting things to say, with autobiographical elements adding colour to the topics he explored and how they affected him as a mixed-race person.