Comedian Trevor Noah makes his Honolulu debut on Friday with two standing-room-only shows at the Blaisdell Concert Hall. Tickets went fast, thanks to Noah’s work hosting Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” which has built him a strong liberal fan base in these — massive understatement alert — divided political times.

But the 4,000-plus fans who fill the venue twice on Friday may be in for a less political set than they expect.

“What I do in my stand-up is different, because it’s not time-based and it’s not topical,” Noah said last week in a phone call from the New York set of “The Daily Show.”

“I (don’t talk) about current affairs. … I keep it really light. I talk about what’s been on my mind for a while, as opposed to what’s happening right now.”

This approach gives Noah a break from following the news each day, he said — but it’s also a practical choice, given the 33-year-old South African’s global audience.

“I tour all over the world,” Noah said. “So I can’t let it be something that is specifically political with regards to America.”

Noah’s international travels inform his observational style of stand-up, much of which focuses on cultural differences and tendencies of the countries he visits, subjects that go well with his gift for impressions and accents.

America became a larger part of Noah’s worldview when he moved to the States about seven years ago.

“One of the biggest things I didn’t realize before I came here was how spread out and diverse the U.S. was,” he said. “When you view the U.S. from the outside, you may get the impression of it being one country with one idea of everything, and yet when you get to the U.S., you realize it’s really not as united as the name would have you suggest.

”When it comes to the politics, when it comes to the cultures, when it comes to even small things like traditions and accents and ideas, they change so dramatically from one coast through to the next that that you begin to realize that it’s very different worlds flying under one flag.”

U.S. politics became a part of Noah’s repertoire when he joined “The Daily Show” as a contributor late in 2014.

“I was definitely familiar with U.S. politics, but not as in-depth as I am now,” Noah said. “I always like to say I think I knew as much about U.S. politics as Donald Trump did before he got in the race, and so this has been a journey of both of us learning about the presidency at the same time.”

Not long after Noah joined “The Daily Show,” longtime host Jon Stewart announced he would be leaving the show. After 15 years in the anchor’s chair of the fake news show (as opposed to “fake-news shows,” such as … well, check President Trump’s Twitter feed for an updated list), Stewart was as closely identified with the program as any host was with any show on American TV. So taking over and winning over the show’s devoted fans promised to be a challenge.

“It was an extremely difficult process,” Noah said, “most of the time spent with people counting down to when your show would fail or when you would be canceled. But that’s par for the course. If you don’t want to be part of that game, then you shouldn’t be doing what you do.”

For his part, Stewart did his best to ease the transition. The main thing was that he made a point of stepping aside at a time rife with fodder for the show: the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election.

“Coming in during an election year — that really was a great gift that Jon Stewart gave me,” Noah said, “because he specifically wanted to make sure that I came in with an election because he knew that the election provides momentum that you wouldn’t normally get in the middle of a year. That’s something that I’m eternally grateful for.”

Stewart also gave Noah some valuable advice on his way out the door.

“He said, ‘Make the show you feel needs to be made, and don’t let anyone tell you what they think you should make,’” Noah related.

Reviews were mixed at first, but Noah gradually won over the audience. He may have finally escaped Stewart’s shadow with his viral November interview with Tomi Lahren, the then-ascendant commentator (since let go by conservative network The Blaze in March for declaring herself to be pro-choice). The confrontation served to contrast Noah’s calm demeanor with the more angry tone of both his guest Lahren and his predecessor Stewart.

“Trying to get into a shouting match is not where I wanted to be, nor is it what I wish to do,” Noah said. “I think a good interview is one where people are having a conversation and the interviewer is challenging the interviewee on their ideas. And so that’s pretty much what I was going for with that. So there was no need for me to lose my cool, because I was in a space where I was expecting most of the things that she was going to say.”

Though politics won’t be the focus of Noah’s stand-up act, he is willing to express his views outside “The Daily Show.” Asked what Trump could do that would surprise him, Noah is deliberate, ponderous.

“I think the thing that would surprise me now is if he became presidential,” he said. “The only thing that would surprise me is if he started focusing on the job and took the job more seriously than he takes it right now, if he spent more time working on the presidency and less time on his businesses and playing golf. I think then I would be surprised, but everything else, I go, ‘Yeah, this is pretty much how I thought a Trump presidency would be.’”

Noah doesn’t like to make predictions. “You cannot predict the unpredictable. You can only predict that it will be unpredictable,” he said. But he does have a guess at what lies ahead for America under Trump, and it doesn’t involve any imminent resolutions.

“Everybody keeps making comparisons between (Trump and) Nixon and Watergate,” Noah said, “and I don’t think that America’s in the same place, mostly because (Trump) has the full force of the Republicans behind him. Essentially, this is one of those things where only the American people will get to decide the fate of Donald Trump. I don’t think it’ll be something that happens before the (2018 midterm) election. … Impeachment seems like a very unlikely conclusion. So to me it’s just day to day.”

For now that means focusing on his first trip to Hawaii (he performed on Maui on Thursday night). Unlike with other tour stops, he is making a point to spend some leisure time in the islands.

“I didn’t want to come all the way to Hawaii to not spend time in Hawaii,” Noah said. “I wanna do everything. I have some plans for riding bicycles on volcanoes and eating myself some Spam.”