Trevor Noah on The Daily Show: Mistakes, he's made a few - but so do all comedians

Trevor Noah's old tweets have been trawled for offensive material

Trevor Noah performs live on stage in South Africa (AFP PHOTO/STRINGER)

It hasn’t come up in the many profiles written this week to mark his new job as the host of The Daily Show, but in 2012 Trevor Noah won a prize. The South Africa stand-up was marked out by the maverick Malcolm Hardee Awards as “The Act Most Likely to Make a Million Quid.”

That was at the Edinburgh Fringe, where Noah made his debut in a dingy, tiny room with an hour-long show about race, growing up in Soweto and making his new home in America. Eddie Izzard brought him over from the States as part of his one-man mission to internationalise the UK comedy scene. It was instantly clear that he was bound for bigger things – charming, telegenic, compellingly softly-spoken in a festival full of noise; here was a stand-up with intelligent, important, and funny things to say. He talked about being “born a crime” – to a black South African mother and a white Swiss/ German father under apartheid - about his grandfather calling him “master” and moving to America because he wanted to be black.

Those of us who were lucky enough to catch him on his way up have been feeling pretty smug this week – however his hosting turns out, Noah is unlikely play the Pleasance Courtyard for £9 a ticket again - though not as smug as John Fleming, the man behind the Malcolm Hardee Awards. Noah’s million is surely already in the bank, with several more to follow.

His journey to The Daily Show has been a whirlwind, based on a handful of fleeting correspondent roles on The Daily Show, starting in December 2014. The backlash has been even swifter. No sooner had the appointment of a young, mixed-race, largely unknown South African had been widely approved and Stewart had given his blessing, than his social media was scrutinised. Unsurprisingly for a young comedian, they found a few offending tweets. Imagine landing the biggest job of your career and then being presented with all of the things you have ever said online. Awful.

The tweets in question were picked out for poking fun at fat, Jewish and Asian people, which means Noah is an equal opportunities offender, at least. Offence is a thorny, some may say redundant, word in comedy. If someone has been upset by a joke, then that is no cause for flippancy but how many comedians have never told an off joke, or one they have come to regret later?

Comedians test boundaries and experiment - they have to, in order to grow as a performer - and sometimes they fail. If Noah has cracked some ill-judged gags in the past it is only fair to judge how suitable he is for The Daily Show, and, most importantly, how funny he is, when he is sitting in the chair. Then, as a confirmed comedy superpower, with an audience to match, he will be fair game.