Eddie Izzard is not a comedian one readily associates with racially provocative material, but at least one young stand-up has been encouraged to go down an edgier road due to Izzard’s ear for a good story. Indeed, that ear transformed Trevor Noah’s career.
Noah, who makes his Dubai debut with three sold-out shows at Ductac’s Centrepoint Theatre starting on Thursday, chanced upon the British surrealist at London’s Comedy Store a few years back. The ambitious South African had previously shied away from joking about his apartheid-oppressed upbringing, thinking it too heavy for comedy crowds. But Izzard spotted the potential, urged him to pursue that topic and became an ongoing guru. Which is ironic, as Noah initially had no idea who he was.
The resulting material has propelled Noah to stand-up superstardom, aided, admittedly, by his breakthrough show’s attention-grabbing title: The Racist. “I live for those moments where I feel like: ‘Ooh, I’m pushing my luck here,’” he admitted last year.
Actually, Noah’s style is relentlessly likeable, but race and comedy have become newsworthy issues in 2014 across various nations. Particularly contentious is the abrasive French performer Dieudonné. Already infamous in France, his notoriety went global when the United Kingdom-based footballer Nicolas Anelka performed an anti-Semitic gesture popularised by the comic. Anelka’s contract was cancelled, as was Dieudonné’s January tour, but the latter retains a fervent fan base.
Dieudonné was also banned from entering Britain in February, but a row about onstage racism has reared there anyway.
The widely reviled comedian Jim Davidson is currently on a cash-in comeback tour, having surprisingly won a major reality show in January despite admitting that his act involved “cartoon racism”. And earlier this month, the head of a controversial political party, Ukip’s Nigel Farage, was forced to defend an obscure comedian named Paul Eastwood who mocked various minorities while performing at the party’s conference. “Let people tell their jokes,” said Farage, which sparked a fiery debate about censorship.
In the United States, an absence of colour has caused offence. The influential, late-night sketch comedy Saturday Night Live hired a new cast member in January, Sasheer Zamata, following criticism that the show lacked a black female comic. And last month, Jerry Seinfeld was accused of favouring white guests on his web series, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, a charge he dismissed as “PC nonsense”.
Noah, now edgier, is no fan of political correctness either, but then his act is positive anyway. He’s into viewpoints, not victims. “I feel you can get more across,” mused the comic, “if people are laughing with you”.
•Trevor Noah’s sold-out shows are from March 27 until March 29 at 8.30pm, Centrepoint Theatre, Ductac, Mall of the Emirates
artslife@thenational.ae
