With his urbane swagger and good looks, it sometimes seems Trevor Noah was preordained to be a next-gen comedy sensation. Hard to imagine, then, that The Daily Show host’s mixed-race ethnicity—part of his international appeal—made him literally illegal in his native South Africa.

He speaks candidly of growing up under Apartheid in his memoir, Born a Crime, and how the relationship between his black mother and white father sent his mom to jail for a time, and forced young Noah into hiding. An amalgam of cultures, Noah recalls his mother converting to Judaism, and his awkward bar mitzvah: “…nobody came, because nobody knew what the hell that was.”

The sharp-tongued comic’s global perspective informs his Afraid of the Dark live show, with bits on everything from properly vomiting in Scotland, to why Idris Elba might not be the best James Bond, to how women can empower themselves at bars and in bed—simply by utilizing a Russian accent.

Trevor Noah: Afraid of the Dark, 8 p.m. Nov. 10, Smart Financial Centre, Sugar Land