Gig review by Steve Bennett

Being South African gives Trevor Noah an immediate point of difference. Plenty of festival-playing comics joke about weekenders paying royally to experience refugee-camp conditions, but Noah can lace the observations with real conditions back home.

‘Only white people would do something shit for fun,’ he says, playfully tweaking at our privilege. First World Problems are, of course, thrown into greater relief when compared against the grim alternative of the rest of the world, and Noah subtly reminds us what we are lucky to take for granted. His outsider status also gives him a fresh pair of eyes to see ridiculous behaviour that we’ve come to accept, so even relatively straightforward observational comedy has a twist.

But his country of birth is not the main thing that sets Noah apart; it’s an absorbing, laid-back delivery that calmly draws the audience into his confidence. The effect is completed as he delivers his Latitude set perched coolly atop a tall stool, the result of a footballing injury, we learn as he segues into material about the World Cup – and of course this dreaded vuvuzelas of four years ago.

Nor is all his material based on his homeland: his naughty joy at seeing babies fall over – while considering toddlers ‘assholes’ – is nicely done; as is his take on that oldest of comedy topics: marital arguments.

There are sometimes quieter moments in his routines – lulls you could even call them – but so compelling a presence is he that the audience nonetheless hold on his every word. And all his apparently disparate ideas are elegantly threaded together, too, adding to the overwhelming sense of elegance that fills his set. Classy stuff.

Review date: 19 Jul 2014
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett