"Better a fallen rocket than never a burst of light."
~ Tom Stoppard, The Invention of Love

Friday, June 3, 2016

Trevor Noah: Pay Back the Funny (2015)

It was a no Last Week Tonight, no Daily Show week, so have a review of another Trevor Noah standup special (thanks, YouTube.)

Filmed in Johannesburg, this special starts out really similar to Noah’s Lost in Translation show from Comedy Central.  He opens with the same riff on “woohoo,” touches on the same idea of Black people’s fractious history with the police, and tells the same story about his mother and grandmother’s reactions to him getting the Daily Show gig.  At first, I thought it was going to be the same basic show, albeit in slightly different packaging; I like his comment that white people don’t have the problem of going to jail “by mistake,” and I think it’s interesting that, in the anecdote about his mom, his mentions his younger brother being named “head prefect” at school, while in the American-made Lost in Translation, he says his brother’s made “student council.”

After the first 10-15 minutes, though, it’s entirely different, mostly fantastic material.  He has an amusing riff on smartphones, complete with a dramatic reenactment of a woman taking a “candid” selfie.  He discusses South African president Jacob Zuma’s latest scandal and how he’s rebounded from it – I love Noah’s delight at Zuma making fun of the way someone else talks, and his speculation about how Zuma learned to eyeroll is great.  I pretty much always enjoy Noah’s observations about interactions between different cultures, and he has some nice material on accents here, doing a terrific routine on the origins of the South African Indian accent as well as drawing clear distinctions between someone’s accent and their level of intelligence.

Speaking of accents, it turns out Noah’s chief edict from his countrymen before joining The Daily Show was not to lose his.  My favorite part of the special is an extended sequence about The Daily Show’s effect on his life at home and in the States.  He describes himself as “well-known” rather than “famous” and tells the crowd about his experiences being invited to celebrity events.  From the chaotic nightmare of the red carpet, to “rubbing shoulders with” people who have no idea who he is, to desperately trying not to fanboy in front of everyone he’s ever idolized, it’s an excellent picture of what it’s like to have just gotten his first seat at the table.

The other long routine I love is a story about South Africa’s frequent load-shedding (rolling blackouts.)  Returning to South Africa from New York, Noah can’t get past the electric gate for his own house due to a power out, and he muses on the perils of trying to jump his fence before getting swallowed by the soul-crushing exercise of ringing up a government department.  The references here are South-Africa-specific, but trying to call a bureaucracy isn’t.  Between the automated voice, the endless hold music, and the completely-unhelpful live operator who picks up just when Noah has lost all hope of ever speaking to another human again, the anecdote is both totally South African and absolutely universal.

Overall, I think Lost in Translation is still the best I’ve seen so far, but this special is super funny, really personable, and a lot of fun.

Warnings

Language, alcohol references, and thematic elements.

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