Name: Nigel Ng on How His Character "Uncle Roger" Came to Be
Uploaded: 2025-09-03T14:45:12.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Nigel Ng on How His Character "Uncle Roger" Came to Be' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-09-03. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Nigel Ng on How His Character "Uncle Roger" Came to Be' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-09-03. Transcript available.

Yeah, when I was on tour in the U.S., I just flew to every city.
Did you?
I didn't even go with an opener.
On tour, I would open for myself.
Uncle Roger was my opener.
Oh, really?
So I saved a bit of money that way.
So Uncle Roger is your assumed character, kind of.
It's like another character, but it's just you.
Yeah, it's just me.
I speak with a stronger accent, and I'm a little bit grumpier.
But you're not wearing a mustache or a cape or anything.
I wear an orange polo.
Yeah.
That's it.
That's Uncle Roger.
And it just took off because it came, you know, if you want to see someone,
Uncle Roger
mostly complains about food, right?
Oh, yeah.
And mostly about Asian food, like fried rice and those things.
And if you want to see someone complain about Asian food, it better be someone
like extremely
Asian, right?
That adds the authenticity and the comedy of it.
Yeah.
So that's why it took off the food stuff.
Yeah.
But yeah, he's just me with an orange polo, a stronger accent.
You know, when I do Uncle Roger's portion in my tour, it's like my old material.
I just let the character do it.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
People love it.
That's me.
Yeah.
The orange polo.
But, you know, the bar for character comedy on YouTube is very low.
Yeah, that's a good point.
Just put a shirt.
Just put a shirt.
People are like, holy shit, isn't it the same person?
Adam Ray's Dr. Phil is higher effort than whatever this is.
Oh, yeah, dude.
It just seemed like the best guy at Home Depot, you know?
Like a student.
You look like a student at Home Depot.
Oh, thank you.
Thank you.
It's very great, man.
Yeah, people love Uncle Roger and people love learning about different food
through him.
I think that's one thing.
What made you decide to go into a food direction on your YouTube, man?
And some of my audience won't be familiar with Nigel or Uncle Roger, and that's
okay, right?
That's okay.
It's the way you kind of effortlessly kind of just like, I think you seem, this
is what it is to me, and this is very judgmental.
All right, here we go.
I'm used to seeing some Asian people be more probably quiet or not have maybe
this similar sense of humor, and I think your humor seems very similar and
relatable to just somebody like me.
Oh, thank you.
And I don't mean it like it's a judgment because it's like, well, what does
that matter, right?
But I think that's why it seems so, like your humor, sometimes I feel like
maybe some Asian humor I wouldn't get it, or even if it's an Asian person with
American humor, I wouldn't get it as much.
But yeah, yours just seems so like effortless and comes across, man.
I feel like every family has an Uncle Roger type character, right?
This person who likes to talk shit, this know-it-all who likes to talk shit,
loudmouth, person who's just roasting everyone.
Oh, yeah.
I think every culture has someone like that.
Maybe pedophile or none.
No, no pedophile.
Okay.
Keep it PG.
Okay, fine.
Whatever, man.
I don't know.
Whatever.
I'm just asking what the question is.
Well, you know, I grew up, growing up, I think most Malaysians, most Asians
love food and we have opinions, a lot of opinions on food and where the best
thing is and what is the best fried rice, for instance, you know?
So during COVID, I remember I went full-time stand-up comedy, September 2019,
so six months before COVID hit.
I was like, finally, I saved up enough money.
I got enough paying gigs that I can make a living off of stand-up.
And then COVID hit six months later, I lost all my work.
So I had to be like, okay, I have all this time on my hands.
What do I do?
You know, I have this idea for this character in my head.
And then one day, somebody sent me that very first video, the BBC food, this
woman making egg fried rice.
And I was just watching and I was just like, this is horrendous.
This is horrible.
So let's put that character idea with this reaction video, YouTube idea, and
then things just took off from there.
So, and I realized food is relatable, you know, to Asian people, to everyone,
right?
Fried rice.
Everybody's had fried rice before.
White, Asian, black, you know, doesn't matter what race you are.
Everybody likes it.
Yeah, everybody likes it.
Everybody has had it.
Everybody has an opinion on it.
Is there fried rice crispy treats or no?
No, we can start one.
That's a good idea.
Fried rice crispy treats for a little packet.
I like that, huh?
Yeah, but it's too sweet though.
Yeah, very sweet.
Maybe you can come out with a savory one.
Yeah, that is the BBC food, egg fried rice video.
The one that I reacted to.
And what is it?
Yeah.
Who is that?
Her name's Hersha Patel.
We did a video together.
Wow.
She was just, you know, like a collateral damage.
She was just a presenter.
And the BBC gave her this recipe.
Hersha, she's got, her pronouns are heavy in her first name.
Hersha.
Oh, wow.
So, she does a lot of bizarre things, you know, like-
I don't care.
I would buy her a damn omelet somewhere.
Yeah.
She's making the rice and-
And so, what is she?
This is your, you know her?
I, yeah.
After the video went viral and she was under a lot of, she got a lot of hate
messages.
About this video?
Yeah.
For making bad rice?
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
This is like a Meghan Markle effect or whatever.
Yeah.
Something.
And then I realized, my videos where I critique, when I roast celebrity chefs,
or I critique
food, those go really viral.
They do super well.
And then after doing it for a few more years, I was like, okay, people trust me
when I talk
about food because I try to keep it honest if the food is good.
I say it's good.
If it's bad, I say it's bad.
So, that's why I think I can make, you know, do some good business in the food
world.
That's why now I have restaurants.
I have restaurants, I'm writing a cookbook, all that stuff.
And it's fun, man.
It's like fun.
You know, I've done the, I love stand up still.
I just don't have the time to do it anymore.
And I'm taking a break from it because I realized I'm not, I wasn't devoting
enough time to it.
You know, at most I could do two sets a week and that's not enough.
That's not enough.
That's not enough.
You get, you feel so rusty.
The first 10 minutes of your set, you're getting rid of that rust and you can't
really get
better.
So, maybe one day when things settle down a bit, I'll get back to stand up
because I love
it.
It's just that, you know, that instant reaction from people.
Yeah.
Well, it's also, it's, you know, it's funny.
I think how if you try, like, was it scary to try your first, that first kind
of food video?
Because it's interesting for an entertainer, if you're in a certain world or
space, right?
It's interesting to then try something different.
You're like, well, my friend does this and it's really neat.
He does it super well.
But if I do it, is mine going to be okay?
Are people going to perceive it as okay?
Right?
I think that's a big fear.
Oh, yeah.
You know, I have friends that do great sketches.
Like, Shane Gillis does some really great sketches.
Yeah, I've seen them.
They're great.
Yeah.
Gillian Keeves.
Oh, I love that.
It's so good, dude.
It's Toyota sketch.
Some of it, it's just so, so funny.
And there's times where it's like, I'll think of a great sketch.
I'll write it on my phone.
And I'm like, well, if I did that, would it be okay?
Would I be too...
But it's like, I think you think like that, right?
It's normal.
It's normal.
It's normal to think like that, but nobody cares, dude.
Right.
That's the truth, right?
Yeah.
But then, I don't know, if somebody saw somebody doing something like a bunch,
you're like,
oh, this isn't the avenue for them.
But then, if you have a good instinct for yourself, you would kind of notice
that as well.
Here's what I'm asking you.
Was it hard to do that?
Was it hard to just take that leap and be like, I'm going to try this different
thing?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
You fear...
I fear the judgment of every...
Because back then, in the UK, nobody was doing YouTube, you know?
It was just a weird thing for someone to do.
For a stand-up to do.
People, other stand-ups would be like, oh, he's just a YouTuber, you know?
That kind of slur, right?
Yeah, a YouTuber.
Yeah, a YouTuber, ugh.
No hard R on it.
YouTuber.
Yeah, that's crazy, dude.
YouTuber, please.
In a sense, the thing you want to do with your channel, introducing people to
more things,
that's kind of the same with what I want to do, you know?
Especially for my food.
Because food is so tied to culture, right?
So, there are a lot of videos where, sure, you know, a lot of them is me
roasting celebrity chefs,
but there are also a lot where Uncle Roger travels to a place.
Like, my recent one, I went to Thailand, and I got someone who lives there to
show me.
Mark Wiens, another big food person.
Oh, you ate at 6.30 a.m.
You ate in the morning.
Oh, yeah.
Thai green curry in the morning.
Oh, the best I've tasted.
So good.
And I feel like a lot of the times when Western people go to Asia,
they always show the weirdest parts of what Asian people eat.
Yeah, like, come eat these cat nuts or whatever, huh?
Yeah.
So, I feel like me doing this is kind of like, almost like an insider view of
Asia,
compared to like a Western perspective of Asia.
And I feel like that's my little contribution to the internet.
Yeah.
Oh, there you go.
Oh, yeah.
That's me.
And that's just a secret curry spice.
I look good.
This is a high effort podcast, man.
You got a Photoshop person on board?
Yeah, we got one guy.
But, yeah, it's just a secret seasoning you're selling.
Yeah, yeah.
That'd be great.
That's a chili sauce.
That's my new chili sauce.
Well, I think Asian food is just expanding in the U.S.
I'm sure that it's just growing.
Look that up.
Is Asian cuisine growing in America?
It must be.
Oh, definitely, definitely.
And there are so many of us globally, you know?
Of Asian.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, you see one Asian, you've seen them all.
That's the old motto.
Yeah.
Asian cuisine is growing.
It's growing in popularity in America.
This is reflected in the increase of Asian restaurants.
Well, that's easy to say.
So it's getting more and more specific.
Oh, sorry.
Please read first.
Go back up.
U.S. visitors to Asia saw a 33% jump,
while Oceania and Central America each saw a 30% increase.
So people just traveling.
Yeah.
Traveling overall is just increasing their palate.
Japan is the gateway drug to Asia.
Really?
Because Americans love Japan.
But then when they get there, they love it so much,
then you get the courage to explore other parts of Asia.
Thailand, Cambodia, see the landmines, you know?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
See the ladyboys in Bangkok.
Oh, dude, yeah.
They'll both blow you up.
Yeah.
One's a little nicer, I think, you know?
Yeah, that's true.
Thank you.