Trevor Noah on Traveling the World for Standup, His Favorite South African Dishes, and More
20.12.2023 - 01:51
/ cntraveler.com
Trevor Noah has spent a lot of time on the road lately. Since wrapping up his tenure as host of The Daily Show last year, the comedian has been hopping between continents to perform standup in some of the world’s greatest and most fascinating cities, from Berlin and Tokyo to Glasgow and Paris. His travels have also, unsurprisingly, given him more material to work with—much of which he explores in his new Netflix special, Trevor Noah: Where Was I, released on December 19. Condé Nast Traveler recently caught up with Noah—who also has a new Spotify podcast, What Now? with Trevor Noah, in the pipeline and will be returning as host of the 66th annual Grammy Awards in February—to talk national anthems, South African curries, and why travel has the power to shift our perspectives.
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Which places were you most excited to do a show in?
I was really excited about Paris. I'd spent my whole life wanting to go to Paris, and finally went for the first time a few years ago—I've been dying to go back and do shows since. And I’ve always wanted to do comedy in Japan, so that was on my bucket list as well. Right now I'm selfishly traveling back to the places I enjoy. I'll travel anywhere just to go and have one of my favorite dishes, see one of my favorite sights, or hang out with some of my favorite people.
You mentioned you'd always wanted to do comedy in Japan. I imagine different jokes land differently depending on where you are—for example, something that might bring the house down in Tokyo could fall flat in London. How do you adapt your sets depending on the place, and how do you read an audience culturally during stand up?
To be honest with you, that's the joy and the curse of doing standup all over the world. I think a lot of my audiences have come to know me as a comedian who caters a show to them when I visit their country. So if you see my show in London, and then you see my show in Glasgow, Scotland, it's completely different. There may be a few things that overlap but I really try to create and cater to the place that I'm in. It's hard. I try and do my best to understand all of the cultural nuances, but comedy is all about context. And if you don't have the context, you might find the joke doesn't go the way you'd like it to.
It's a tightrope walk and I think that's what makes stand up comedy fun. Live audiences understand that—it’s an unpredictable drama unfolding in front of your eyes. It's the joy of everybody knowing that they do not know what's going to happen. I think in a world where so many things are prepared, and