Performed: November 30, 2023
San Francisco, CA, USA
I had the pleasure of watching Trevor Noah live on his stand-up comedy show titled “Off the record” on November 30, 2023, in San Francisco. Watching him perform live has been a long-term wish of mine..! I’ve followed Trevor Noah’s work closely ever since I started watching snippets of “The Daily Show” on YouTube. His memoir, “Born a Crime”, is one of the most interesting and inspiring stories I’ve come across (listened to this on Audible, narrated by Trevor Noah himself - it was like a long stand-up set). I learnt about Apartheid in South Africa through this book. Listening to his interviews/ him interviewing other people, I’ve admired his insights and perspectives on various (social) issues - not to mention his ability to perform an engaging commentary on contemporary topics. I’ve also recently started enjoying his podcast on Spotify, “What now? With Trevor Noah”, where he interviews famous/ notorious/ controversial personalities - I look forward to a new episode coming out every Thursday!
The live performance I watched was an extension to all of what Trevor Noah is extremely good at: engaging in a conversation and providing food for thought. It felt like an extempore set, his jokes were entirely observational based on his recent travels, encounters and conversations with people while abroad to perform. While I was mildly disappointed that it wasn’t a super-structured stand-up set with a beginning, middle an and end tying jokes back to the beginning, I realized a day later that each of the jokes / small set of topics he elaborated on had this structure all by themselves. Without revealing too much about the show, I can say that he touched upon topics relevant for the audience present locally: such as cost of living and homelessness in San Francisco and topics from his travel: homosexuality, about how Germany doesn’t try to hide it’s history unlike the US, hustle culture in the US, about how cursed all of us are with what the airlines industry can get away with and how we can’t do anything about it, recent travel in India filled with moments of tragicomedy -- to name a few! His analogies and jokes were spot on and he kept the audience engaged through and through! I was surprised he also indulged in a little bit of crowd work - as I hadn’t seen him do it in any of his recorded stand-up shows. Overall, it was an entertaining and educational 90-minutes! Wishing him all success in his subsequent tours and (new) ventures (including his Trevor Noah Foundation that aims to provide quality education to kids in South Africa) he seems to continue taking up!
Trevor Noah Live (Off the record): Off my bucket list!
