Trevor Noah

Dressed in black jeans and a black bomber jacket, it becomes clear early that Trevor Noah is drawing influence from classic Eddie Murphy stand-up; however, they're worlds apart in the craft of comedy. The first show on his Australian tour traverses a broad spectrum of accents and tongues which, alone, stole the show for the polyglot host of Comedy Central's The Daily Show.

Noah's routine covers the cultural confusion of 'bumming a fag' in a scathingly on point Aussie twang, getting into hot water for trying his best Indian in an Indian restaurant, and a smattering of his native Afrikaans. His black president skit - in which Nelson Mandela meets a young Chicago senator, Barack Obama, and teaches him to put some bass in his voice - is a clear crowd favourite, but applause is loudest 90 minutes in for his observations on the super villain qualities of the Russian accent and a spot-on impersonation of a record dragging in reverse. Also on the table are Phelps' ridiculous medal count, Lochte's bullshit, tackling terrorism at South Africa's World Cup, Trump's 'racist sunset' face tan and the general all-'round racism that stemmed from a possibly black James Bond.

Unfortunately, Noah's show sags a little in the delivery, dragging dead weight over his punch lines, and any high brow commentary of race, religion or politics that you might expect - given that he's the custodian of an Emmy and Peabody Award-winning show - is on the low end. He would do well to channel less Murphy and more Izzard.