The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah Drew More than 1,000 People to Milwaukee SHow

Comedian and host of the Daily Show Trevor Noah headlined the Campus Activity Board’s Comedy show at the Milwaukee Theatre on April 16. The event was available for free to all UW-Milwaukee students, and it drew more than 1,100 people.

Two weeks prior to the event, UWM and CAB announced the free event to students where they could pick up tickets in the Union. Transportation was also free to students as buses picked up students in front of Lubar Hall to the Milwaukee Theatre downtown.

“I was very excited and freaked out when I heard the news,” said freshman Cassandra Shulfer.”I got my boyfriend to come with me because he has never seen Trevor Noah before, and I wanted him to see how brilliantly funny he is.”

Host of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, Noah is one of the most successful and famous comedians to come from South Africa. After doing years of television in South Africa, Noah made his U.S. television debut in 2012 on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno becoming the first South African comedian to do so. Noah would go on to do a multitude of comedy shows and even appeared in his own one-hour special on Comedy Central, Trevor Noah: Lost in Translation. He also appeared on The Daily Show in 2014 and early 2015 as a correspondent before taking over for Jon Stewart in September of 2015.

To kick things off for the show, New York City comedian Angelo Lozada opened things up. Most of his routine was interacting with members of the audience like asking them questions about their lives and cracking jokes. The one thing in particular that got the audience’s attention was that there was a sign language interpreter signing for someone in the front row and both Lozada and later on Noah were amazed that there was one present. Lozada ended up getting the interpreter to sign explicit language which made the audience laugh. His routine lasted around only 30 minutes before Noah got on stage.

Noah began things off by talking about his day in Milwaukee. He explained how confused he was since it was a Saturday but the streets of downtown were almost desolate except for a couple people. He also found it amusing that even though it was almost empty, the people who were there would still stop at traffic lights even though there wasn’t any traffic. He would go on to explain that in South Africa the traffic lights are more of a suggestion and neither cars nor people really obey them. This also showed Noah’s comedy style as he uses a lot of stories of growing up in South Africa and applying or comparing them to his experiences of being in the United States. He also has a strong Jon Stewart influence as most of this comedy is strongly political; which he got into later.

One segment or story that got the audience really laughing was when he first came to America and had no idea what a taco was. His American friend that he was staying with suggested that they go and get tacos and not knowing what they were, Noah just decided to go for the ride to experience tacos. They decided to get tacos at a roadside food truck and after waiting in line for a long time and finally arriving having no idea what and how much to order. After getting his taco, the food vendor suggested that Noah should get napkins and Noah was confused and appalled because a napkin is a diaper in South Africa. It was one of the high points of the night for the audience.

Much like what he does on The Daily Show, Noah started going to more political comedy speaking about sexism, racism and the presidential election.  The one thing that was very controversial and got the audience’s attention was his routine on racism. He explained that in Africa the n-word doesn’t have meaning behind it, and hence it’s not racist and it doesn’t have an effect on the people there like it does in America. He even said that in South Africa the word means “to give” and that he grew up normally hearing it. He wrapped it up by saying it’s the words and prejudice created by certain people that have made these words and language become bad. Many students enjoyed the show and said they loved that Noah had a core message behind his comedy.

“It was very funny, and I was given great perspective,” said Freshman Hunter Fleiner. “Comedy is great way to spread a positive political message while entertaining an audience.”