‘Never prepared for a show with dogs in cages backstage’: Comedian Trevor Noah roasts Bengaluru’s cancelled show

“You know sometimes you feel like something is about to happen and it does. That happened to us in Bengaluru. We are driving to go to the venue. After about an hour and a half of driving, I was like, where are we going? The driver and everyone in the car was like this is the way we are supposed to go,” he said, referring to the massive traffic jam witnessed in Bengaluru on September 27 as people looked to travel out of the city with the long weekend approaching.

At some point en route to the Bengaluru venue, Noah said, the driver turned to a dirt road. “Where is this? Am I performing in the past? Where am I going? And they drove us to this venue,” he said.

Explaining the challenges he faced on entering the venue, Noah said that usually when he goes for a show backstage, “what happens is that there will be like an entrance you walk into. You emerge in a backstage area before you come and perform. Here, we walk through an alley that was full of dogs, half of which were in cages…. Some of those dogs are outside (while others are in). What have these dogs done? That’s what I want to know.”

“I have never prepared for a show with a backstage area with dogs in cages,” he added.

Roasting the venue, he said that it was “technically a building” but the room where he was supposed to perform looked like a “semi-permanent tent” with giant air-conditioner units on the side making a loud noise.

“They tried to turn the sound up so that you can hear what is happening. But, because the room wasn’t designed for human beings, what happens is the sound waves are now just bouncing around the room in every direction,” he further said, mimicking the echo in the room.

In a response to the clip, Biocon founder Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw posted on X: “Bangalore’s shambolic state has provided enough content for Trevor Noah’s future shows. If this does not wake up the administration then we have nothing left to hope for.”