Some comedians prefer to play it safe, choosing to test their work on family and friends until they’re completely satisfied with their audience’s response and laughter level before taking it to real the stage.
Trevor Noah is not one of those comedians. He’s the kind who prefers to plunge, headfirst, into the comic void and just… see what happens. “I like to think [of my stand-up performances] like the early inventors of the airplane,” says the 30-year-old South African.
“You just find a cliff and jump off, and you keep doing it, and if it works on a small cliff, then you move onto a higher one, and a higher one, and then finally you get to a big audience and you go, ‘Fine, okay, I’m happy with this material’. So I do test it out on the audience and if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. Crashing is part of flying, so…” He trails off.
Clearly he’s endured enough crashes and burns to have earned him his pilot’s licence on the world stage. As his memory serves, it’s been six years since he entered the professional circuit – and so long as comedy will have him, he’s planning to stay. “Comedy is the most elusive mother,” he says. “She loves many and many love her, but you never know when she’ll stop loving you and you just hope you can enjoy it for as long as it lasts.”
{youtube}MIgy7-5ySSc{/youtube}
Cashing in on the time he has while it’s here, after a year away Noah’s finally returning to our shores with his brand spankin’ new ‘Lost In Translation’ show. Is that typical? Taking one year to produce material for a new show? “I don’t consider myself to be a prolific writer,” he says. “Some guys can sit down and they write an hour of material in one year. Some guys do an hour of material every three years.”
Give you one guess which one Noah is. “I don’t put a time limit to it,” Noah says. “Basically when I have the material then I’ll do a show, as opposed to putting a definitive timeline to it. So, like now with Australia, I’m lucky enough that the timing has come where I have a completely new show from the last time I was there. So I can come out and enjoy that with everybody.”
“I think my Irish [accent] is better if I’m drunk. It helps you slur a bit, you stumble over the words.”
If you missed him last year, here’s an idea of what you can expect from Noah this time ‘round. He’s the kind of comedian who speaks cultural commentary on the back of an acerbic wit that’s peppered with mastered accents and languages. “I don’t know if I’ve mastered them,” Noah interjects.
“Half of the time I butcher an accent. But I think it’s funnier to have a caricature of an accent than to have the real accent. So, sometimes they’ll be over-the-top because it’s funny.”
Other times, they’ll just be all-out wrong. “I always mix my Irish and my Scottish [accents],” he admits. “I think my Irish is better if I’m drunk. It helps you slur a bit, you stumble over the words.”
I suggest he should come prepared with a dram of whisky in him before his Irish shows, but he only laughs. “No,” he says. “Then I’d forget everything else!”
Suffice to say, he’s much better with languages than he is with accents. Despite English being his mother tongue, Noah’s interracial background (he’s half Swiss, half South African) and African upbringing means he’s quite versed in a number of languages – and he’s isn’t afraid to prove this on stage either. “When I’m performing in South Africa, I’ll do some of the African languages,” he says.
“If I’m in the Netherlands I do a few jokes in Dutch. In Germany, I do some stuff in German. I play around as much as I can. It’s a nice tool to have and people in the place enjoy it. Even if you do it horribly, they appreciate that you tried to do something in their language.”
Trevor Noah Tour Dates
Tue 14th Oct - Sydney Opera HouseWed 15th Oct - Sydney Opera House (sold out)
Fri 17th Oct - Crown Theatre (Perth)
Sat 18th Oct - Crown Theatre (Perth)
Mon 20th Oct - Hamer Hall (Melbourne)
Wed 22nd Oct - QPAC (Brisbane)
Thu 30th Oct - Crown Theatre (Perth)
