So After Week One, How’s Trevor Noah Doing?

Just great, so far. Yes, Trevor Noah seems to have taken to hosting the ‘Daily Show’ in the United States almost as if he was to the manor – or should that be the manner? – born.

In the weeks leading up to his takeover of the show from Jon Stewart after 16 years, many naysayers predicted he didn’t have the chops for the job. Many tweeted to give him a chance, but others continue to post messages on social media that Noah is not funny and the show is going to fail.

From his first day on The Daily Show, however, Noah quickly settled in with the satirical news routine, and his infectious (and dimpled) laugh seems to suggest he’s enjoying it. The website rottentomatoes.com, which aggregates both reviews and the public’s response, has so far given the show a 76 percent and 73 percent rating, respectively. That’s pretty darn good.

Noah admitted in one interview that there was a lot of pressure on him and the shows participants.

“I think if we didn’t have the pressure and we weren’t afraid then I’d think there’s something wrong with us”, he said. “This is a giant undertaking and we’re approaching it as such. But we’re also excited about it because it is a giant undertaking.”

On Thursday, his take on Donald Trump being like an African dictator hit home for lots of reviewers as something special. (Especially when he observed South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma and Trump’s similar style of “light xenophobia with just a dash of diplomacy”.) Until then, some said, he had been more or less imitating the Jon Stewart formula.

In the video from the show Noah says Donald Trump should be a president in Africa

http://on.cc.com/1LWjHlo

“There was something brilliantly and subversively eye-opening about the similarities between Trump’s grandstanding rhetoric and that of Robert Mugabe, or Muammar Gaddafi, or Jacob Zuma – the politics of the robber baron, after all, is not just an American phenomenon”, said a reviewer on salon.com.

Even if a writer on the show had been working on the segment for a while, the reviewer said, “given that the segment kicked off with Zuma – the president of Noah’s home country of South Africa – it’s safe to say that Noah’s perspective on African politics at least influenced the opener.”

In his interview this week with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a popular politician despite at least five scandals that have been linked to him, and who is running for the Republican presidential nomination, Noah said, “A lot of people don’t know you were one of the first people to wish me good luck.”

When Noah said Christie, who is well-known for being overweight, looked good in shorts, Christie said, laughing, “There’s no requirement to lie on your first week on the job.” Noah quickly replied, “I guess that’s different to your job.”

See the Christie interview on Comedy Central