‘Trevor Noah: Joy in the Trenches’ review: Noah asks the tough questions, but makes you laugh anyway

Trevor Noah has ne'er been contented with conscionable making you laugh. In his latest Netflix special, Joy successful the Trenches, the erstwhile Daily Show big poses a question that cuts close done the laughter and makes you beryllium up: “who volition you beryllium erstwhile past calls?” It is the benignant of question that makes you beryllium up and pause, adjacent successful the mediate of what is different a thoroughly hilarious hour. 

The South African stand-up comedian is wide known arsenic a governmental satirist with a flair for observational comedy, but astatine his core, Noah is a maestro storyteller. Much similar his memoir Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood, this peculiar is essentially a collection of stories and situations drawn from existent life, peppered with sharp, situational comic relief.

The show, which runs astir an hr and 8 minutes, opens with Noah addressing a Truth Social station by U.S. President Donald Trump, who had reacted powerfully to Noah’s crook arsenic Grammy big implicit a gag astir Trump’s narration with Jeffrey Epstein, and threatened to writer the comedian. What the President wrote is beside the point. What follows is simply a sharp, assured opening that sets the code for the remainder of the special. Noah, who readily admits helium stands nary accidental against 1 of the world’s astir almighty men, takes him connected anyway, 1 gag astatine a time. It is not your regular Trump takedown but a much quality and nuanced one. 

Noah’s comedy, arsenic I person agelong found, is seldom the fall-off-your-chair, laugh-out-loud variety. It is thing subtler and, successful galore ways, much lasting: laughter astatine situations that are uncomfortable, absurd, and often profoundly human. He has a uncommon acquisition for uncovering the comic nervus successful struggle and chaos.

At its heart, the peculiar is astir however radical find joyousness in difficult times. Ukraine and Russia person been astatine warfare since 2022. Almost all of Gaza lies successful rubble, its radical surviving successful makeshift tents. Conflicts rage crossed West Asia. What bash we bash astatine a clip similar this? Should you propulsion the graduation enactment and fto your hairsbreadth down, oregon clasp backmost retired of guilt, as so much of the world starves and burns and suffers? As Noah illustrates done the representation of soldiers successful opposing trenches singing unneurotic and playing games crossed the border: “They were warring to live. They weren’t fighting to fight. If you hide what you’re warring for, there’s nary constituent successful fighting.”

Just arsenic the peculiar settles into its much reflective register, Noah takes a turn. We larn helium sees a therapist, a revelation casual to admit astatine a clip erstwhile conversations astir intelligence wellness are much indispensable than ever. The displacement to his dating life, however, feels abrupt fixed the value of what precedes it. Noah has ever been generous successful sharing his beingness with audiences. His memoir for lawsuit lays bare everything, from a puerility incidental of defecating connected his grandmother’s level to his mother’s troubled marriage. What we person seldom heard astir is his romanticist life, who helium has loved oregon hopes to love. This, then, is a first. Unexpected, yes, but besides a genuinely human moment.

And it is precisely the unexpected that sets this Emmy Award-winning comedian apart. Joy successful the Trenches is thing but ordinary.

Trevor Noah: Joy successful the Trenches is presently streaming connected Netflix