Welcome to the world of Trevor Noah. And I mean world. The well-travelled stand-up’s latest tour, Off The Record, finds him telling tales about time spent on numerous continents. From America to South Africa. India to London. What every story had in common was that they all elicited roars of laughter that almost took the roof off the O2.
The former host of The Daily Show, who quit partly to get back to his first love of live comedy, made his job look frighteningly easy as he strolled seemingly casually around the arena stage, barely breaking sweat as he slipped in and out of accents, pulled faces, acted out punchlines and dispensed with the script for a fruitful Q&A session.
In the past, Noah has been more overtly political. His breakthrough 2012 show, The Racist, was about growing up under apartheid with a South African mother and Swiss father. Here the approach was more general. A routine about a visit to Germany learning WW2 history, a swipe at Donald Trump. The latter was satire-by-numbers but the bumptious language-mangling impression was on point.
This was an outing that frequently dealt in Michael McIntyre-style universal observations as he ran through a range of relatable experiences. Who, for example, hasn’t dreaded getting the middle seat on a flight? For Noah this meant an inevitable battle for the armrests that he was determined not to lose.
His material about national stereotypes could be crass in less skilled hands, but Noah brought a freshness to his portrayal of aloof French waiters or angry Glaswegians. On recalling a Scottish news report about an attempted murder he compared it to places he's lived: “Attempted murder? That’s a good day.”
Apart from a routine about struggling to get the volume right when viewing pornography this was the apotheosis of clean-cut humour. There was nothing controversial. The globetrotting gags didn't go anywhere near the Middle East. Noah would rather talk about airport security strip searches than the Gaza Strip.
In purely comedic terms, though, it was impossible to fault a performance that ran for almost two hours without an interval and flew by. He can certainly generate new content. Some entertainers milk the same shorter set for years. Noah last visited in autumn 2021 and this is already all-new killer and very little filler.
At the start he took in a sea of clicking smartphones and reflected on the way people are too fixated on filming things to enjoy life. “Picture, picture, picture, memory full, delete, delete, delete.” Sometimes we are so busy snapping we barely notice where we are. Memories are precious, he added. And so is Noah.
