Inside Trevor Noah’s Long-Awaited Return to ‘The Daily Show’ Studio and a Live Audience

variety.com:

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterTrevor Noah came home to “The Daily Show” studio at 733 11th Avenue in Manhattan on Monday, just over two years after he last taped an episode of the Comedy Central late-night series there in front of an in-studio audience.For his first show back, Noah, who hosted the Grammys just over a week ago, brought in a vaccinated, masked-up crowd to give him the comedian-audience exchange he’d been sorely lacking in his many, many at-home “Daily Show” tapings.

Of course, the COVID-19 pandemic has changed everything, including how Noah interacts with his in-person viewers.“I feel like you’re all robbing me,” Noah joked while chatting with the audience, where Variety was in attendance, from his desk during a commercial break.

Noah encouraged “The Daily Show”-goers to ask him whatever they wanted, saying this part of the making a late-night show — the human-to-human, back-and-forth element — is what he’d missed most.

One audience member asked him if he had been wearing pants while taping his at-home shows, to which Noah responded “Yes” — and then launched into a story about how a time he was left freezing outside in his boxers because of a fire alarm prompted him to always at least be wearing a sweatshirt and pants at all times.