How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - S12, Ep3 How to Fail: Phil Wang

Episode Date: September 15, 2021

Today my guest is the excellent Phil Wang, stand-up comedian and soon-to-be published author. As a comic, Wang has appeared on a host of comedy panel shows including Would I Lie To You? and 8 out of 10 Cats. During the pandemic, he became the first UK comedian to tape and release a Netflix special at a sold-out London Palladium.His new memoir, Sidesplitter: How To Be From Two Worlds At Once examines his dual identity as the son of a white British mother and a Chinese-Malaysian father.He joins me to talk about failed shows, failed sporting endeavours and failing to learn Mandarin. We also discuss racism, introversion, height and why we're perfectly matched tennis partners.--Sidesplitter by Phil Wang is out on 16th September. You can preorder it here.--My new novel, Magpie, is out now. You can order it here.---How To Fail With Elizabeth Day is hosted by Elizabeth Day, produced by Naomi Mantin and Chris Sharp. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email [e-mail]---Social Media:Phil Wang @PhilNWangElizabeth Day @elizabdayHow To Fail @howtofailpod    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Thank you very much to BetterHelp. Hello and welcome to How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, the podcast that celebrates the things that haven't gone right. This is a podcast about learning from our mistakes and understanding that why we fail ultimately makes us stronger. Because learning how to fail in life actually means learning how to succeed better. I'm your host, author and journalist Elizabeth Day, and every week I'll be asking a new interviewee what they've learned from failure. Phil Wang is a stand-up comedian who, by his own reckoning, owes his life to the Bishop of Portsmouth, the voluntary service overseas, and the British Empire. To backtrack a little, it was the Bishop of Portsmouth who founded the VSO in 1958. Some years later,

Wang's mother, a white British archaeologist, volunteered to go to Malaysia. There she met Wang's father, a Chinese-Malaysian civil engineer. Wang explores this dual identity in his debut book, Sidesplitter, How to Be from Two Worlds at Once, which, like Wang's comedy, manages to be clever, funny, and a lethally insightful riposte to the question, but where are you really from? The book is part memoir, part observational essay and touches on Wang's upbringing. Born in Stoke-on-Trent, his family moved to Borneo when he was three weeks old. When he was 16, they returned to the UK. Living in Bath as a teenager, Wang writes that, I have never felt more Asian in my life.

Comedy was a necessary outlet. At Cambridge University, where Wang studied engineering, he won the influential Chortle Student Comedy Award and was the president of Footlights. Since then, he has appeared on a host of comedy panel shows, including Would I Lie to You and 8 Out of 10 Cats. a host of comedy panel shows, including Would I Lie to You and 8 Out of 10 Cats. During the pandemic, he became the first UK comedian to tape and release a Netflix special at a sold-out London Palladium. The Times called Philly Philly Wang Wang unique and properly funny. But for all the accolades, Wang has not always felt included in the joke. I've always felt like an outsider,

he has said. I was always the white guy in Malaysia, and then the Chinese guy in the UK. I think that sort of thing is quite common in comedy, not quite belonging. Phil Wang, welcome to How to Fail. Thank you, Elizabeth. That was sensational. After sort of months of grappling with a synopsis for my book and my life, I should have just asked you, how did I do this? You didn't need to write a whole book. You could have just had the intro. No, I have to say, it is quite hard summarizing everything because your book is brilliant, and you are brilliant. And there's so

much in it that is that kind of observational essay tone, but so much that is subtle and nuanced about what you convey, you venture into tricky territory, and you manage it all very well. But was it hard to write to balance all of those elements? I'm really glad to hear you say that. Yeah, it was. I mean, this is the first time I've written a book. And as a stand up, we rely so much on instant feedback with an audience. I mean, that is our writing process, you go up with this raw version, this raw idea, and you bounce it against the audience and, and you're sort of writing it in real time and it's always mutating and changing you're editing it every performance but with the book you're just

you know maybe one or two people see it a couple of times but the full version goes out pretty much in its original form without that feedback from the audience and so it was a unique challenge to try and get all those things in there together, get all those elements right in one go without this constant feedback with the audience. But it was very important to me to keep it funny. I think primarily it's a funny book and I wanted it to be a funny book, but I'm a real fan of good writing, which is a nice way of saying I'm a very irritating pedant. And I wanted the language to be as good as I could. You know, I was trying to avoid repetition of words. I take every bit of work as an opportunity

to get nerdy about something. And I got really nerdy about writing and prose for this, I think. Yeah, that was quite tough to marry as well. I mean, it shows. And I think that what you do brilliantly in all of your work is that you use comedy as a vehicle for communicating difficult ideas. I mean, there's a couple of passages that have really stuck with me. One is where you talk about privilege and you say, you know, privilege is such a loaded word now. Let's just call it a bit of good luck. You were raised with a bit of good luck and it opens up your eyes. You're like, yes, that's so true. And then the other passage was when you were talking about your dual heritage and talking about being both identities rather than mixed race or biracial as if you are

halved by it. And I just thought that that was really poignant. And there's no question there. I suppose I just wanted to say that. I really appreciate that. This is another thing writing book, you don't know which bits are going to stick with people and different bits stick with different people. But I'm really glad to hear that you appreciate that bit. I mean, the half both thing, because like language really matters, doesn't it? How we describe ourselves really matters. On the face of it, it seems sort of unimportant

and superficial in the words that we use. What's the difference between saying you're half Chinese and half British as opposed to both Chinese and British? But yeah, there's a sense of negation, isn't there? When you say half something or half the other, or a sense of almost tainting with saying half something, half the other. And I still don't say I'm both Chinese and British, I still say half half. It's a hard linguistic tick to overcome, I suppose. Well, I was going to ask you if you correct people, or if you say, actually, I'd prefer to be referred to like this, or does that seem like too much effort? Oh, no, no, never, never. I mean, it's not a question of effort.

I think culturally we're veering into quite a scoldy culture, and I don't really want to be part of that. All I want to do is just express my opinion and express how I feel, and the language people use is sort of up to them. It matters, the language you use, with regards up to them. It matters the language you use with regards to mixed race people, but it isn't the most important thing. The half and both thing just sort of struck me as an interesting thing, more than like a manifesto for a permanent change in our language. You also talk about how racism against Chinese people often takes the form of ridicule and that it's been heightened by the COVID-19 outbreak. What ways have you seen that manifest itself? Well, plenty of news stories of an increase in violent attacks against East Asian people in the UK, in America.

Anecdotally, my sister, you know, she was sort of harassed by a guy on the street and when she didn't return his attention he was like well you've only got coronavirus anyway you know that sort of thing when i was walking home like this is before the first lockdown as i was entering before i entered my flat building a guy looked at me with corona like that and just sort of like hastened his pace away i think at its worst it sort of gives some people a vindication for their racist attitudes towards these asian people now they feel like there's a a good reason to be suspicious of these asian people that sort of thing is kind of funny like this heightened period of aggression towards these asian people also coincided with the age of lockdown so we're

also protected from it by a sort of macabre bit of good luck and how did you find lockdown because I read in a recent interview that you felt rudderless because stand-up comedy is a way that you process your thoughts so how did you manage that when you weren't allowed to perform? I hadn't realized how important mentally stand-up was to me. And I don't really have many conversations with people, I'm not very talkative. Stand-up is sort of my main way of, as I say, processing my thoughts through speech. This book was a real life ring in that sense. It was a way for me to process some thoughts and to put jokes down and work on a project.

And so it gave me a sense of meaning and purpose for most of the lockdown. But there are periods there when I think we all had it, where we just didn't know what was happening. We just float from day to day, just watching the news, seeing what's going to happen next, just wondering when we'd be able to continue with our lives.

There was the occasional Zoom gig, Zoom stand-up gig, which could be quite good or a bit awkward. You never know with the Zoom stand-up gig if a joke has failed or if you just have a bad internet connection. And I got to film a couple of fun little sketches for a couple of online things. I just wrote and filmed them in my flat. But I'm glad things are back now definitely and I didn't realize how important stand-up was to me I said in the introduction I quoted you saying that it's quite common in comedy that feeling of not quite belonging you've had great success in recent years do you feel like you belong now that's a good question actually

um maybe one i've been avoiding no no i don't think i do feel like i belong any more than i did before but comedy has helped me come to terms with that sense of belonging i think i've come to an acceptance about how much i can expect to feel like I belong somewhere. Part of what I say in the book is, I think there's peace to be found in accepting that some lives, you will never feel the sense of belonging someone else feels where they're from. I will never feel like I belong in the UK as much as someone who's born and bred here,

who's been here for generations, who has a local football team. And I will never feel that sense of belonging. And I will never feel the sense of belonging as someone who stayed in Malaysia. But what I've lost in that sense of belonging, I've gained in, you know, this, I think, quite unique life and this outsider's perspective and a broader perspective on the world. Comedy hasn't made me feel like I belong more, but it's helped me come to terms with how much I do belong there's also a very moving chapter in the book where towards the end you talk about the inordinate sense of

belonging you get in your own family and how bonding humor is as part of that and your parents come across so wonderfully in Sidesplitter have they read the book? My mum has. My mum was a very important part in developing the book. She was sort of my fact checker for a lot of like the history and the family history. And she read through it a couple of times and gave me notes and stuff. I don't think my father's read it yet, but hopefully he'll read the final version. Does he just love you a bit less? I mean, that's the only, that's the only reasonable conclusion to come to I think no I think he's always had a bit more of a hands-off relationship to my writing and my comedy work when I was doing more maths and engineering that's when he was able to help with writing the book he's in a

more foreign territory yeah I'm trying to imagine how that conversation went. Like, I'm studying engineering at Cambridge University, but, mum and dad, I've decided that I'm going to make a living as a stand-up comedian. How did that go down? It went surprisingly well. My mother's always said to us, you know, you have to do what makes you happy. And I mean, you know, she's someone who flew to Borneo in her early 20s, not knowing anything about it. So she's not alien to taking a chance on something. My father was just like, just finish your degree. As long as I didn't drop out of uni, he was happy. And I finished my degree. I got my master's in engineering.

He felt like he'd done his job. And the comedy sort of went all right and allayed their fears for the most part. Although it took me to get on to Have I Got News For You for this first time for my mother to stop suggesting I take an MBA just in case. And do they find you funny when they're watching you? I don't know. I'm not sure. My dad's maybe seen me perform live two or three times, not many times. And I've looked down the crowd and I've seen him laughing and I go,

wow, really? Huh. My mother's come to see me a couple of times. And that's always embarrassing because I'm very candid in my standup. You know, I say some pretty private things. And there's things my mother's only ever found out about me through my standup. Wow. And that's always a bit worrying. Like what?

Like that I, you know, that I used to smoke a little bit or that even now, I'm worried she's going to hear this. I used to smoke a little bit or that even now I'm worried she's going to hear this I have to say a little bit or you know the intimate details of romantic relationships stuff I would never say to my mother in person but that I've said on stage on to suddenly panicked remember afterwards oh god mum was in there yeah but maybe I did maybe that's why I need to stand up as well to tell my mum things I'm too embarrassed to tell her in person well that's a very British trait yeah that kind of emotional repression yeah I'm sure you're asked all the time who your influences in comedy are but I wanted to ask you who your favorite engineer is oh that's an excellent question hmm isn't about kingdom brunel I think is it's boring answer, but it's a good answer.

You know, the Great Western Railway, the Clifton Bridge. I love a good bridge. Frank Whittle. I might have to go with Frank Whittle because he studied at Cambridge University and I did a lot of work in the Whittle lab. And basically his fourth year project,

the equivalent of his dissertation when he was studying engineering at Cambridge, was to invent the jet engine. So that was his final year project. The one I did, well, I got like a pass. And my conclusion was, it can't be achieved. It can't be done. It might have been perfectly possible in the hands of a better engineer. But Frank Whittle's final year project was, I invented the jet engine. And I just think that's so fantastic. I mean, this podcast is all about kind of changing our metric of success and failure. But that's designed to make everyone feel like a bit of a failure. Let's get on to

your failures. Your first failure is your third Edinburgh show. Tell us about that. Yeah, I mean, I feel I don't even, I feel it's such a failure that I don't even really want to talk about it. I can hear it. You sound so awkward. I'm sorry. Yeah, it was my third Edinburgh show

and it had come off the back of two stand-up shows in Edinburgh, which were very much imperfect, but which I really liked. And they were just the jokes I'd come up with that year and I'd scrunched it all together, and I'd added a little bit to make it up to an hour, and that was the show. And it didn't always tie together. There weren't any themes, but they were just jokes I was proud of. I thought they were a couple of really funny bits. But the thing

about the Edinburgh Fringe is that it puts a lot of pressure on comedians to add a theme to their show, to give it a narrative, to give it this structure, this ideally like an emotional payoff at the end. In the run up to my third show, this pressure started to take hold on me. And so I sort of built this more storied show with a multimedia element. And it was about my relationship with my girlfriend of the time and how she was leaving, how we're going to start like a long distance element of relationship. And there was a second storyline where I was interacting with a meditation tape that was voiced by myself. And so I interact with this meditation tape, trying to put in jokes and trying to tell the story of the relationship. And it was just so

clunky and confused. And the rhythm was slowed down so much by this meditation tape element, which was pre-recorded. So I couldn't change on the fly. If something wasn't working, I was just kind of stuck with it. And, you know, I played like a sad mamas and papas song at the end to really bring home the emotional element. And it was rubbish. It just didn't work. It was trying to be something that I wasn't. I was trying to be a kind of show that is not my style.

I mean, the show went all right once or twice in a month of what, 26 performances. And the other times were a real struggle. And so I remember it getting so bad that, because rooms in Edinburgh, they're very small, they're just like containers, basically, and they put panels in them, and you have to pretend it's a theatre. And so I'd finished the show, and my exit, my offstage was just, I just walked to beside the seats, beside the audience, and there was a wooden panel separating us. And I just have to wait there and stand there as they left

and wait for them all to leave. Then I could emerge and go home. And I remember it got to the point where I'd get behind this panel of wood as people were leaving. I would cover my ears because I was terrified. Because I was just terrified of what people were going to say about the show as they left. I'd finish the show, go behind this panel of wood

and cover my ears and wait for people to leave. It was really bad. And I hope to God I learned something from it. That's one of the most poignant mental images I think I could ever have of you. Just standing behind a wooden panel covering your ears. Yes, that must have been quite a low point. Do you think you were intimidated by the idea of having to do something specifically Edinburgh? Yes, definitely. And it happens to all the comedians who do Edinburgh. There is a pressure to add something to the stand-up that you're doing. And there's this idea that if you're just doing straight stand-up, you're not going to stand out of the crowd. You need to be talking

about an important issue, or it needs to be hyper-personal, or it needs to be hyper personal, or it needs to be very emotionally affecting. And it's nonsense, really, but I fell into that trap that year. And then I didn't do a solo show in Edinburgh the next year. And I came back the year after that with a straight stand up show that was the best I'd done so far. I felt like I was back on track with the show I did in 2017. But I think it took me failing that year in 2015 with a show that is not my style for me to realize I need to trust my own instincts with what is funny and what makes for a good stand up show. Which is often the scariest thing of all because you're coming on stage as yourself or a version of yourself. Yeah, yeah, I guess. Yeah. But it turns out it's

much scarier to pretend to be something you're not. Yeah. Because you find yourself lost. If I'm going up being honest with myself and performing stand-up in the way that I want to and telling the jokes I want to, and more importantly, not doing the things that I don't want to, like adding some emotional, some sad thing or some big important point, then you feel so much more at home and you're being honest with your audience. And so much of stand-up is about honesty.

And I felt like doing the show that I tried to do in 2015 was quite dishonest. Yeah. You know, I write books and authors all the time get asked about their writing routines and process. And I always find that fascinating when I hear other writers describe it. But it just struck me preparing for this interview that I've never heard a stand-up comedian talk about how they physically write a joke.

Where does it come from? Do you sit at a desk? What's your process for coming up with the joke? We all have different processes. When I started, it was very formal. You know, when I started as a student, I would sit down on my laptop and I'd write out a bit like it was an essay and I'd print out the whole sheet and I'd take this printout of the routine to the gig and I'd keep it in my pocket in case I forgot and I would just learn the script. Now it's a lot more informal. I come up with an idea. Most of the time a punchline will come up to my head and I think that's a funny punchline. I should figure out the setup at some point. And I'll write the idea down on my phone just in the notes app. And then I'll gradually collect a bunch of notes. And then I'll go on stage and I'll just try them out and record it

and try and figure out mostly on stage, how I get to the joke, what the best wording for the joke is. And once I have that, I remember that and I build on it. And then I work on the next routine. I should probably try and structure my process a little better at some point. I don't think you should because what you're doing is working so brilliantly for you. But is there ever a point where you stand in front of the full length mirror in your bedroom and you practice stage presence? I probably should, actually, if some of my reviews are correct about me. But sometimes if a bit of material is a bit rusty, I'll just pace around the flat and just say it out

loud and try and work through it. And I should come up with all jokes then sometimes when I'm just rehearsing it out loud to myself, I'll stumble across something, then I'll make a note of it and try and remember it. But no, I don't do any hairbrush in front of the mirror or anything. and trying to remember it. But no, I don't do any hairbrush in front of the mirror or anything. I talk to myself a lot, like out loud to myself. I look mad, actually. And it's gotten worse, I think, over the pandemic. And now that I live alone in the flat, I'm just talking to myself. And I think I'll work on my delivery then as well. It's very bitty, basically, my process. And when was the first time you realised you were a funny person? I don't really think I am

a funny person I think I have the capacity to be funny and I'm smart and I'm good at science and I understand comedy and I understand its mechanics well some of its mechanics and I feel like I'm able to apply that understanding to things I want to say but as a kid I guess I really enjoyed making people laugh I remember making my mum laugh a few times. And she once said, you're very funny, Phil. And I was like, maybe, I don't know, 10 or something. It felt amazing to be told that I was funny by an adult, you know? I'm chasing that dragon, basically.

I'm chasing that high of being told I'm funny by adults. And I'm still doing it. Are you an anxious person? Yeah, I am. Yeah, which people are always surprised surprised to hear because people always say you're so calm, which surprises me. I'm like a duck or a swan, you know, I'm calm on the surface, but my feet are paddling underneath all the time. So I feel like I recognize as a fellow swan slash duck who sounds calm, but isn't. I, as an anxious person, can't imagine many worse things than doing stand-up comedy.

But is it almost like throwing yourself into the pit of a fire and dealing with it that way? How do you deal with your anxiety when you go on stage? Well, it's funny. I've never been anxious about getting on stage. I'm anxious about whether I've not left the stove on or a tap running or the door unlocked, but I'm never anxious about getting on stage in front of people. I don't know why that is. Maybe I'm a narcissist. I don't know. I think the thrill of getting on stage in front of people and potentially getting laughs has always overcome any anxiety I might've felt about it. And the anxiety is part of the rush. You know, it's like a rollercoaster, right? Part of the fun is the buildup of anxiety and then the release afterwards. I'm usually a bit anxious on stage until the first big laugh, and then I can really get into it.

When that big laugh doesn't come, then the anxiety can kind of rush over. Then you can feel like a free falling. That can be quite horrible. But I don't really get all too anxious before getting on stage until maybe the one minute before my name is announced. Then I think this old primal instinct in me flares up and the fight or flight thing starts to build up and your body starts going, what are you doing? What are you doing? You need to get out of here.

But then, I don't know, I feel like I'm able to channel that into excitement. But it's the only context in my life really where I can sort of channel anxiety into something positive. It's so interesting. I've been experimenting recently with just using a different word to myself. So if instead of saying I'm feeling nervous or anxious, I experiment with saying I'm feeling excited that I get to do this

rather than I have to do this. And I think you're right that so many of the pitter-pattering feelings we get in our bodies can actually bear a similarity to positive emotions too and I think that's a really yeah you're right I mean anxiety and excitement are very close to one another really aren't they because we're talking about, I would like to take the chance to ask you about a specific show that you talk about in your book, which was a London show that you did with Nish Kumar. And afterwards, a married couple came up to you and said what? Yeah, so it's a gig that me, Nish and my friend Pia Novelli, who is from South Africa, all did. And we all did material about race and gig had gone well.

I mean, just by chance, we're all booked on the same evening and we all had stuff to say about race. And this couple came up and they were a sort of white, sort of middle-class couple. And the husband went, lads, that was very good. We enjoyed that. Good night. But enough of the race stuff. Yeah,

enough of the race stuff. We don't need to hear it. And we're sort of like a bit baffled by it. We're a bit used to it because, you know, there's something people say. This guy sort of tried to imply that racism was sort of over, that we don't need to talk about it, that it's done. And we'd been telling jokes about racists and making fun of racism and racist people. And so I asked him, I said, did you feel targeted by those jokes? And astonishingly, he said, yeah, he did feel targeted. He felt targeted by the jokes that were about racism and racist people. I was astonished that he'd made this admission in a way. And like, was he saying that I sometimes have racist thoughts

and I'd rather they weren't brought up or talked about? It was hard to tell what problem he had. A lot of time people just have an instinctive sort of gut reaction to conversations about race where they go, I don't want to talk about this. It's all fine. I don't hear about it. I think they're worried it'll go somewhere unpleasant

if the conversation continues. And so they'd rather probably just didn't talk about it at all but yeah i always think about that interaction yeah and it's an interesting interaction as well precisely because you write in the book that they were a very polite couple and they'd come up and you know they'd congratulated you on the set and yet there was a strain of what seems very like racism there and so yeah it's about that fact that it can often have an acceptable surface face yeah I mean there's definitely something to these two I mean when I was on stage doing my set I mentioned being mixed race having a white mum and the wife she went oh yeah that explains your hair I said what do you

mean explains my hair having a white mum explains my hair i said what do you mean explains my hair having a white mom explains my hair and she said well you know it's like it's proper hair isn't it which was a stunning thing to say you know that white people had proper hair and my mother's genes had overcome my father's genes for improper hair but again she said this sort of in a smiling way she thought she was being nice and i wasn't angry with them because i could tell as far as they knew they were having a nice time. She'd said something nice

that she thought was a compliment, but it revealed this sort of ugly underbelly to their worldview. Yeah. And you also discuss in that chapter the idea that well-meaning people sometimes say, oh, I don't see colour. I just treat everyone the same.

And the point that you so eloquently make is, please see colour, because it's a fact. It's like saying you don't see trains. And you write, I think about race a lot because I have no choice. Could you expand on that a bit? Yeah, yeah. So I mean, I say that saying I don't see colour doesn't get rid of racism in the same way that saying I don't see trains makes it any safer to walk onto the steps of Manchester Piccadilly train station. It's still there, whether you want to believe in it or not, it's still there. They mean well, when they say I don't see color, they're saying I treat everyone the same. As far as I'm concerned, racism doesn't exist, which is a nice ideal to aspire to, but it does exist. And we have to live in the real world. And we have to acknowledge the effect that race and racial difference has on

society and has had on history. So I guess I'm just appealing for a more honest approach to race. That's all I'm asking for. I'm just asking for honesty. I'm not asking for everyone to be morally perfect, but we have to start that honesty. Otherwise, we have no hope. morally perfect but we have to start that honesty otherwise we have no hope and you're asking in such a lovely way as well let's talk about your second failure quite a gear change never getting into sports yeah I just never gone into sports I and I got to the point now I got I really wish I had I remember growing up as a kid I was very sort of quite an emotional kid. I was quite nerdy. I liked sort of video games and TV, the occasional book and movies. I was never good at sport. I don't have very good hand-eye coordination. And I think I've always been, and this is I think

relevant to this podcast particularly, I've always been quite afraid of failure. And I've only ever really pursued things that I felt good at pretty much straight away. So like maths and science, I was pretty good at straight away. And comedy, even my first stand up gig, you know, looking back now is very amateur, but I got last on the night, I had a good stage present, I felt like I could do it, that I was good at it. The first time I saw picked up a rugby ball, I did not feel good at it. Every sports day as a kid running, I just got exhausted straight away. And where other people might have seen that as an opportunity to improve themselves, to train, to practice and to get better, I just went, I'm not good at this.

I'm not going to be the best at this. I'm not even going to bother trying this anymore. Because every time I try this, I fail. And trying this anymore. Because every time I try this, I fail. And I can't handle failing every time I do this. And so I never got into sport. But now looking back and now seeing people who enjoy sport and having friends who enjoy sport and play a bit of sport, it gives them so much happiness. It gives them endorphins. It keeps them healthy. And I feel like I missed the boat on that aspect of life and I really wish I hadn't. I love it when people choose this kind of failure because I relate so hard. I also never got into sports. I tried. I tried very hard to get into tennis because I'm relatively tall and people

would always say oh you would be good at tennis. It turns out I'm not and I can't learn how to be good at tennis and it's partly because of what you say where I ended up paying for some tennis lessons in my 20s so desperate was I and this tennis coach Brad said to me your problem is that every time you miss a shot you dig yourself into a pit of such self-loathing that you cannot clamber out of it and you need your mind needs to be in the game and that's the thing like I couldn't separate me as a person from the game and it's just so humiliating that's people talk about like the scary thing about stand-up is that you'll fail and that'll be embarrassing and that's true but I've always been able to take that embarrassment over the embarrassment of, say,

just falling over on a football pitch or throwing a bowling ball straight into the gutter. I mean, I still think about a comedian's bowling outing, where I just threw every single bowling ball into the gutter, just straight into the gutter, like I was trying to do that. That embarrasses me more now than the worst gig I ever had. And I couldn't deal with the threat of that embarrassment every time I put my little shorts on and my little my little football jersey on I just couldn't take it and also it's the team aspect of it you know and it's funny enough like

you say you mentioned you tried tennis I tried tennis last year as well and I feel like if any sport will sit well with me it'll be tennis yeah And I think it's because there's no team. I hate being on a team and letting everyone down. A hundred percent, yeah. Yeah, that's the most embarrassing thing. I don't mind failing at something and having to bear the entire burden of failure. But when I've let other people down, what's worse when they go, oh, good try, Phil.

Unlucky Phil. The number of times I've heard unlucky Phil on a football pitch. Unlucky Phil. You can tell they're annoyed. You can tell they really wish I wasn't on their team. But I have to go, hey, thanks. Thanks. I can't stand that. I really can't stand it. Did you have that thing at school where you were picked last for teams? Yeah. Yeah. I was only ever in that sort of situation a couple of times, fortunately. Most of the time the teams are preselecteded but I remember once or twice we had that classic lineup and people go I pick Jamie I pick Ben and I felt like I've seen American TV I know where this is going and I was right

right at the end someone goes go on then Phil come on come on then you're with us but do you do exercise now have you found a kind of exercise that you like because that was a great unlocking for me was realizing yeah I didn't like sports like you I'm very competitive so if I'm not going to be competitive in a way that will end up winning I don't want to do it because it's just too much of a head fuck so I now find that I like spinning because I'm just totally on my own within the context of a car. I genuinely just imagined you spinning on the spot then I was like what are you talking about just pirouette just like spinning like a ballet dancer yeah but yeah okay sure just spinning on the spot centrifuging the fat away right I see all right like yeah on the

bike machines that looks horrible that looks so hard well what's good about it is that the music is excellent and I am a sucker for a super motivational instructor who seems like they might be doing class A drugs but who is like incredibly motivating in a sort of pseudo-american way like I for whatever reason that works for me yeah but have you found an exercise style that works for me. Yeah. But have you found an exercise style that works for you or you just don't do anything ever? I, no, I found I am responsive to having personal trainer. I'm a good student. So I need a teacher. I need a teacher there to give me homework, to make me do it. Yeah. Someone that I can let down, someone who is there I could

possibly let down. That motivates me there I could possibly let down. That's what motivates me. But I have to treat it very much as like a personal improvement kind of thing. I'm not going to the gym because I enjoy it or that I'm hoping to get better at the sport. I need to do it because I understand now that it helps me think. It makes me better at comedy, tragically. I'm best at stand-up when I haven't been drinking for a while and I've been exercising regularly. And it is the most depressing realization I've ever had about myself.

And so I have to remind myself that it's good for me. It's good for my life. It's good for my work. And sometimes I get that endorphin rush and go, yeah, exercising is fun. But that doesn't last. It really doesn't last. I need to chase tennis again, really. That's what I need to do. No, don't.

It's a fool's errand. I'm tall after all. You and I can have a tennis match well there's no way that we can let each other down because we're both equally pants at it oh yeah I mean it'd be terrible to watch you just spinning on the spot me just hitting the net again and again why do you think you're afraid of failure if i'm allowed to get really Freudian about it i guess because i'm a good boy i'm a good little boy i'm supposed to be a good boy and good boys don't fail you know and i was good at school and i was sort of top of the class and i was well behaved and when i fail at something it feels like i'm stupid or let someone down, or that this isn't part of the story. You know, this isn't how things are meant

to go. You know, I'm, I'm a good boy meant to get these things right. So I find failure really, really painful. And I wish I'd learned to accept it earlier on sometimes. Do you feel that part of it is you didn't believe you had multiple opportunities or space to fail because of that thing we talked about at the beginning because of belonging that's interesting yeah I guess feeling like I didn't belong growing up looking different from everyone feeling different you know having come from this background that was different to everyone else's I felt like I stood out more and I mean because of my mother's genes I literally stood out more because I was taller than everyone this is something that I think is actually a recognized

thing that tall people are a lot more self-conscious because they've been more exposed than anyone else, literally, their whole life. They're the hardest to miss. You feel like you're always being watched when you're tall because you're sort of peering over everyone. And so funnily enough, like some of the shyest people I know are tall. Tall people tend to be quite shy. everyone. And so funnily enough, like some of the shyest people I know are tall. Tall people tend to be quite shy. And so sticking out like I did growing up, I felt like I was under more scrutiny than other people, which was completely in my head, completely made up. But I felt like it was more of a big deal if I failed at something because everyone was watching, which is a kind of egotism too, I guess. It's because I felt so different. I felt like I stood out so much and

that people were watching me. Also, my parents, you know, they're successful professional people. They're both very smart. They've both done well in their lives. And I felt like I really didn't want to let them down. As you get older, you realize that your parents didn't always have it figured out, that they have their weak points too. But growing up, you don't think that, right? Yeah. How tall are you? I'm six foot one. After Pilates, six six foot two okay i see you do pilates too okay yeah i'm about six foot one how tall are you i'm 5 11 wow yeah yeah that's tall yeah but i didn't have my growth spurt until i was 14 but you're right that thing of oh i just remember boys of my age saying that i was intimidating or formidable.

And I found that kind of crushing. Like now, I think that's an amazing compliment. But at the time, I just wanted to be a petite blonde. Of course. Were you like lanky tall or were you built? I was hench. No, I was lanky tall. Lanky tall.

Yeah. There's a Netflix movie called Tall Girl have you seen that? no but I've seen the trailer for it and I was like I can't watch that

it's too upsetting I started it with my sisters as a joke and we watched the whole thing I highly recommend Tall Girl

okay okay fine for those who don't know it's about the trials and tribulations of a girl in high school who's tall and that's it that's the only thing

wrong with her it's my life story and itulations of a girl in high school who's tall and that's it. That's the only thing wrong with her. It's my life story. And it ruins her life. Are you a people pleaser? Because this is something that comes up again and again for female guests. And I think, wrongly, it's often attributed to women, the desire to please others and to sort of outsource your sense of self to other people's opinions. But are you a people pleaser? I mean, I guess by definition, But are you a people pleaser?

I mean, I guess by definition, a comedian is a people pleaser. The whole job is that you're trying to go out there and please people. I think working in the creative industry at all, technically you're a people pleaser, unless you're like an avant-garde artist who's out there to shock. But I'm not one of those. And so, yes, professionally speaking, I am a people pleaser. And I think personally speaking, I also do try not to upset people. But in my 20s, I actually started making a considered effort to let go of that a little

and to allow myself to look out for my interests a little more and to say no, as they say, and deleting the sorries from my emails and that sort of thing. I think professionally speaking, I am a people pleaser. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. It's part of the reason I do the stand-up I do I've always had the choice of being a little more alternative being more weird and doing more stuff that's just for myself to enjoy on stage but for me getting the laugh out of the crowd has always been the top priority and that's shaped my comedy certainly I don't think there's anything wrong with being a people pleaser if that is your job personally speaking how does that work for you in a romantic relationship say are you a people

pleaser in that sense because that can sometimes be quite difficult yeah and traditionally I have very much been a people pleaser in the romantic setting and in the long run I and the relationships have suffered for it because something would come up whoever I was with would say something unpleasant or treat me badly or lack compassion in some instance. And in order to please them, in order to not upset them, I would let it go. And it was interesting actually listening to your chat with Gina Miller on this podcast. And she said one of the most important lessons she learned was to not let the little things go. And she was right. All these little things that I let go in relationships built up to a point where the relationship was no longer tenable because I'd felt so unvalued.

And I'd let so many small insults pass. And they'd built up into an overall sense of antagonism. And eventually the relationship was sort of ruined by it. And I kind of wish I'd listened to Gina Miller six years ago. We all wish that. We all wish we did. Let's move on to your third failure, which is Mandarin. Tell us about that.

Yes. I never became a Mandarin in business. I've always wanted to... No, it's not that. Mandarin the language. I've never, ever gotten my head around Mandarin. I've never truly got fluent in Mandarin. And it's been this sort of tick sucking on the blood in the back of my head for my entire life. I grew up in

Malaysia. I lived in Malaysia until I was 16. And the first couple of schools I went to were Chinese schools. My Malaysian side is Chinese and native Bornean, but culturally very Chinese. And so they all spoke Chinese and Chinese schools in Malaysia teach you Mandarin. And so I started learning from an early age, a bit of Mandarin, but Chinese school is very brutal in Malaysia. And I got to the age of 10 and I just couldn't really handle how brutal and frightening Chinese school was. They had corporal punishment, you know, so if you didn't finish homework, you get caned on the hand. There was a couple of teachers, you would get a cane per percentage point you got below, say, 80% on a test. So if you got, I don't know, 75%, you get five strokes with a cane. And so every day going into Chinese school was terrifying

because I was walking into this space where I didn't feel physically safe. Yeah. And it really took a toll on me. Even now I have this real fear of authority and of getting things wrong. And my fear of failure, I think, for some part, stems from my years in Chinese school, where failure was punishable with physical pain you know and so I left Chinese school at the age of 10 to a more gentle school which didn't teach Chinese it's like a Catholic school they taught English and Malay and so I was much happier there but I stopped learning Chinese

and my Chinese since then it's just so withered away and now I can kind of get by a little bit I can I speak basically like a Chinese five-year-old might but I can't read very much I've forgotten most of the characters and I have no opportunity to get back there really I mean obviously I could take lessons but I don't have time I'm busy I don't have anyone to speak it to because this is an English speaking society, you know, and I don't have any Chinese relatives around. And so it's very hard to come to the acceptance that I will never have a grasp on my Mandarin. That I'll never be fluent.

And it feels like I will never have full ownership over one side of my heritage, you know? Yeah. But I don't really know what there was I could have done about it I could have studied more in my own private time but I just you know life takes over and I couldn't have stayed in Chinese school it was just so traumatic yes it sounds horrendous there isn't anything you could have done about it that's not your responsibility it's sad because I can hear that it upsets you that you don't have the full experience of that side of you because you've lost so much of your Mandarin but you were a child and I think you

need to ease up on yourself and just I'm glad you left that school it sounds really tough and as you say clearly that's where a large part of your fear of failure comes from, is because you were going to get caned if you got it wrong. Yeah, yeah, almost certainly. Yeah, it's funny, me and my middle sister, we went to Chinese school and our younger sister never went. And there's such a clear difference in personality between me, my middle sister and us and our younger sister. Our younger sister is just a much freer spirit. It's funny I mean who knows who knows maybe we would have been like this anyway but I think those years are really formative years you know yeah is she more willing to take risks

yeah definitely and she's certainly less anxious about things it's funny that in it I think I also a lot in my life I owe a lot to my discipline and and my care and the care that I put in things and the feeling that things might go wrong and I need to put in place measures to avoid that. I have benefited from that as well. Yeah. Yeah. So it's a tricky one. I mean, I think it makes you into an excellent observer as well. And I cannot possibly relate to my experience in the way that you've told it. And I wasn't caned and I didn't learn Mandarin,

but I did grow up in Northern Ireland with a very English accent at a time when bombs were going off all around and it was quite a curious combination and I definitely felt like an outsider because of the way that I spoke and because my background was a bit weird and I didn't have a good time at the secondary school I went to in Belfast but I'm very grateful now retrospectively precisely because of what you say I think that it gave me drive and ambition to be something to kind of prove school bullies or naysayers wrong and I think it also made me talk less and observe more and listen more, which I guess has made me into what I am now, which is sort of a professional listener.

I think that's such a beautiful point that you make that even if something was a difficult experience at the time, it has bequeathed you something that you wouldn't have otherwise. Yeah, I think it has. To go back to your point of not belonging, I think when you feel like you don't belong when you're young, you put real effort into finding a place where you do belong. Yeah. And you put work into writing books and moving away and, you know, moving out into the wider world.

It's a poison chalice, I guess. Does your dad speak Mandarin? Yeah. Yeah, he speaks better than me, but also his reading is not great. My Chinese-M Chinese Malaysian side because in Malaysia everyone speaks usually at least English and Malay and if you're Malaysian Chinese you'll speak English Malay Chinese and within Chinese there'll be Mandarin, Hakka,

Cantonese, Hokkien you know a bunch of different dialects so everyone speaks a lot of languages but none all that particularly well right and they'll they'll mix them all up. And so it might be that my Chinese side, if they went to China, they would also feel a bit out of place. They wouldn't really understand what was going on. When mainland Chinese people hear Malaysian Chinese people speaking, they're like, you've got your tones all wrong.

They're also speaking a Chinese that is less refined. But still, you know, I still growing up fell left out of my Chinese side for not knowing Mandarin better and also not knowing other dialects like my Chinese Malaysian side would know Hakka and Cantonese and Hokkien even a bit of Hainanese and I was still struggling with just the one Mandarin. Wow I mean even you talking about it is making me feel completely overwhelmed with the complexity so I think I'm going to give you a pass, Phil Wang,

on not speaking fluent Mandarin. But is Sidespitter, is it going to be translated into Mandarin? Do you know yet? Oh, that's a good question. There are no current plans, but yeah, I guess it'd be a good market to open up. I don't know. I mean, it would reduce the page count, certainly. It's very compact language, Mandarin. I think it could be a pamphlet in mandarin it would be a lovely way of coming full circle i just wanted to ask you about the title side spitter because it's such a brilliant title and how difficult was it to come up with it took months i mean titles are so hard i went through so many iterations that i now look back and go that was embarrassing that i thought wang in the middle what was I thinking that is terrible I'm glad that didn't see the light of day yeah I'm very glad I didn't settle on wang in the middle my cultural fill

yeah I mean these are all terrible these are all really really bad but a side splitter I was like what's the word for funny, splitting sides, side splitting funny. I've got two sides and it just kind of came together. It's funny. Some people have told me, oh, I love that title. It's so good. And other people I say it to and they'll go, oh yeah, yeah. All right. Yeah. Yeah. Just not bothered, but it means a lot that you appreciated it. No, it's great. But what's it like having your face on the cover for someone who is self-proclaimed anxious what will that be like just seeing your face in those book shops and seeing people on tubes just reading your face well in a funny way comedians and stand-ups are kind of used to it because every year we have a show where the show has posters

and we promote ourselves all the time with our posters and we show pictures of our face the name of the show and your image becomes part of your brand becomes part of what you're selling it's obviously different for novelists and people who are authors you don't put your face on the cover of the book because a lot of the time the book isn't about you it's about the story you're telling right and because as a comedian you are recognizable for your face it makes recognizable for your face, it makes sense for your face to be on the book. I mean, I was actually in the publisher office yesterday

signing all the signed copies. We set up basically like an assembly line of them passing me books and I'd sign it and push it on. And someone there was like, is it weird just looking at your face again and again and again? And I said, no, not really. Because of like show posters and and stuff and

yeah maybe I've become narcissistic but I think comedians are a lot more comfortable with selling their face and selling their image because it is the job it's so interesting I mean do you like your face now do you think you've become slightly detached from it you know what I do like my face now I do I like your face I think you've got a great face thank you very much it took a while in my early 20s I had no idea what I was doing when I was at university I looked awful I had these tiny bitty glasses and I kept drinking fruit smoothies because I thought they were good for you they're not they're packed with sugar so I was quite fat and I had this chin and I just stopped drinking fruit smoothies

and I got nice big cream glasses and I sort of lent into being short-sighted. And I quite like my face now, definitely, yeah. That is a really good note to end on. You have succeeded at liking your face, Phil Wang. And I like you, I like your book, Side Splitter. Everyone must rush out and buy it. It is entertaining, but also so insightful.

And I can't thank you enough for coming on How to Fail. Thank you, Elizabeth. It was a pleasure. If you enjoyed this episode of How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, I would so appreciate it if you could rate, review and subscribe. Apparently it helps other people know that we exist.