With the arrival of comedian Trevor Noah's new talker there was hope. That someone would, once and for all, pull off a format that's never worked in South Africa. A comedy talk show with exclamation marks of clout, lots of humour and something really "out there" to say.
Tonight With Trevor Noah premiered on M-Net on Wednesday night - at the
wrong time of 19h30. The first big and unfortunate problem.
The result: Trevor spent most of his time looking uncomfortable and afraid that his guest Pablo Fransisco would offend people by saying the "wrong" thing and cringed at his slightly more risque jokes in case they were exposed to children. Despite the show having a 13 PG rating.
The tentativeness and fear factor that pervaded the atmosphere comes down to the same thing that happens time and again: shows wanting to please everyone, all of the time and ending up stifled down to a middle ground that isn't exciting nor talk-worthy at all. The same thing happened with The Gareth Cliff Show
.
Instead of committing to entertaining one specific age group and perspective by putting the show on later, it's been suffocated with rules, "family values" and assumptions that the audience isn't mature enough to handle something more hardcore.
You can't lay all the blame on Trevor or the show for being so tentative because it's such a symptom of the current climate we live in. In South Africa our journalists are being threatened and arrested, satirists have their ink bugged (I'm sure it's happening) and globally sponsors are placed at the centre of things with a final corporate say in what's acceptable and what's not.
Ultimately everyone who
isn't creating the entertainment is stifling and controlling it, instead of the creators. I could almost hear all the voices coming at Trevor from behind-the-scenes: "Don't do this," "Be careful of saying that." "Oooh watch out for talk about lesbians and shut it down," "Don't mention this or else ... " "Remember children are watching." "Worry about that."
How can you possibly be funny or entertaining when you're surrounded by all this??
I don't know if that's what actually happened but it's definitely what it felt like watching. There's no ways anyone can be themselves and let go when you're trying to entertain under such restriction.
It's also the audience's fault - for getting so "offended" at the slightest little thing. Writing letters. Phoning in to complain at the mention of something that seems like it should be wrong. It's got to the point where anything anyone says can be taken with offense - and that everyone has a right to keep it quiet - just because they don't like it. Bah!
Why shouldn't people be offended? Why shouldn't people get upset? What does it matter? One day it's all a big deal and the next day someone else is saying something else that gets everyone all hot and bothered and it's forgotten.
I fully, fully believe that until entertainers - talk show hosts in particular - are set free to be themselves without all these high school restrictions we'll never have a talk show that knocks people's socks off to run season after season with big ratings.
Tonight With Trevor Noah airs on M-Net and M-Net HD on Wednesdays at 19h30.