First comic standing

Be it on his late-night show, on stage as he hops across the world or in 280 characters on Twitter, Trevor Noah is the funny man of the moment. Shahnaz Siganporia speaks to the comedian ahead of his India debut

- Shahnaz Siganporia

In the age of the Hannah Gadsbys and Hasan Minhajs, comedy is turning into a more aware and inclusive space while remaining pant-wettingly funny. And Trevor Noah has been leading this pack of comics for a while. But what made this bi-racial South African comedian (his mother is Xhosa and his father is of Swiss-German ancestry) the global sweetheart of comedy? In Vanity Fair’s Proust Questionnaire, when Noah was asked: “Which words or phrases do you most overuse?”, he replied, “You must remember.” Don’t look for the set-up, story and punchline here. His three overused words help trace the root of Noah’s impact, not just as ‘America’s therapist’, but in the way he allows his comedy to stay global, clickbaity and urgently relevant as he taps into history, memory and context. Because even as a recently-tried-for-impeachment president might urge America to ‘become great again’, Noah urges us to remember. And in that, lies his signature dripping-in-satire-witand-laughs charm that you just cannot get enough of. He takes on race, gender, immigration, politics, climate change, bigotry and of course, Trump. As he returns to the foundations of satire, comedy and the carnivalesque, he tackles history and the establishment and cuts through the bullshit with a turn of phrase or two.

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