NOAH-IT-ALL
Why Trevor will have the last laugh
IN the clamour to claim Trevor Noah as our own (hands up black, white, coloured, Jewish people), it is sometimes overlooked that the man from Soweto fought his way onto The Daily Show through planning, determination and sheer arrogance.
On stage Noah seamlessly glides into his schtick and confronts the elephant in the room. In both his South African and US shows, it is race. Like many comedians, Noah draws on personal experience, sprinkled with a liberal dose of hyperbole, to prove to the members of his weeping-with-laughter audience that they have more in common than they have difference.
Born to a Swiss-German father, Robert Noah, and a Xhosa mother, Nombuyiselo Noah, his early adventures and struggle with identity in apartheid South Africa have been well documented in many of his skits here and abroad.
“And when you get older, it’s cool because you’ve lived everywhere and nowhere, been everyone and no one, so you can say everything and nothing,” said Noah in the David Paul Meyer documentary You Laugh But It’s True.
Raised in his grandmother’s house in Soweto, Noah would visit his father in the then ultra-hip and very white Hillbrow, with his mother pretending to be the maid. When his father moved to Cape Town and later to Switzerland, the father and son become estranged, with the last birthday card for Trevor arriving at age 11. The pair recently reconnected.
At the age of 22 Noah had a short stint as a taxi driver on the streets of Johannesburg, which came to an abrupt end when the taxi was hijacked. This unfortunate event would lead to Noah’s entry into the world of comedy, joining the ranks of young comedians like Loyiso Gola, Kagiso Ledige and Tats Nkonzo.
Despite his apparent willingness to reveal all, Noah has been fairly guarded about his past while astutely highlighting the aspects that qualify him to comment more authoritatively than most on matters of race.
“I’ve lived a life where I’ve never fitted in in any particular way,” said Noah in Meyer’s insightful 2012 documentary on the then up-and-coming comedian.
It was in this documentary that he revealed his stint as a taxi driver. What does not feature in any way is his acting and radio career, including work on TV soapie Isidingo and radio station YFM.
He had these jobs before and after his incarnation as a taxi driver. With regular television, radio and commercial appearances since the age of 18, Noah’s rise to fame has been anything but happenstance, but neither has it been meteoric.
Noah had a short stint as a taxi driver in Johannesburg which came to an abrupt end when the taxi was hijacked If ever this comedy thing doesn’t work out then I’ve got poverty to fall back on. And I’m pretty sure I’ll be cool there
In a section of the documentary filmed in 2009, Noah let slip that his mother had recently been shot and wounded by her former husband, Ngisaveni Shingange, in a jealous rage. The attack took place when his mother become engaged to her current husband. Court papers reveal that the shooting was the culmination of years of abuse, some of which Noah witnessed growing up. As an adult, he stopped visiting his mother as a result of the violence.
So it is perhaps no surprise that in his shows, in a departure from his usual repertoire of cracks about race and politics, Noah takes aim at abusers of women.
Recording artist and infamous woman beater Chris Brown (who is currently touring South Africa) often bears the brunt of his wit.
“Now that Chris Brown is a father, which does he have first with his daughter, the ‘birds and the bees’ or the ‘hoes and the loyalty’ talk?” read one of Noah’s tweets.
Beyond his now well-known attempted jokes about Jews and overweight women, Noah’s tweets make him sound like a regular Joe — or Sipho — who enjoys playing FIFA 15, takes an interest in cars and is an ardent football fan.
Much of Meyer’s documentary focuses on his then upcoming one-man show, The Daywalker, with old-guard comedians like Mel Miller deriding Noah’s “arrogance” for attempting something of this magnitude so early in his career.
In The Daywalker, Noah parodies his early years in Soweto, when his family pretended he was an albino to explain his light complexion. He and other black comedians were also berated for harping on about apartheid. The show ran to sold-out audiences.
The attempted murder of his mother prompted Noah to consider leaving South Africa and its seemingly inherent violence.
In the past five years Noah has made numerous trips to the US and done shows in the UK.
Treading where no South African comic had gone before, Noah appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and The Late Show with David Letterman before doing three guest slots on The Daily Show.
The man from nowhere had arrived in the eyes of US audiences.
This week Noah returns to the US, with shows in the Washington DC area that are — according to his website — already sold out.
Having had a taste of the scrutiny he can expect in one of the most highprofile jobs in showbiz, Noah has shown no hint of pulling in his horns.
“I know how to be poor. If ever this comedy thing doesn’t work out then I’ve got poverty to fall back on. And I’m pretty sure I’ll be cool there.” Comment on this: write to tellus@sundaytimes.co.za or SMS us at 33971 www.timeslive.co.za