In a phone interview last week, comedian Trevor Noah spoke of how there wouldn’t be much political humor when he made his Hawaii debut with three sold-out standup shows this week — one on Maui on Thursday and two Friday night on Oahu.

Though Noah is best known for his work anchoring Comedy Central’s über-political “The Daily Show,” the idea was not far-fetched. He has standup specials readily available on Netflix, none of them especially political.

So perhaps he wanted to temper expectations of fans expecting a focus on current events.

Or perhaps he wanted to set the audience up for a surprise, because Noah’s first 8 p.m. show at the Blaisdell Concert Hall on Friday had a strong political element after all, though it took the 33-year-old South African a while to get there.

Noah opened with a good chunk of jokes about Hawaii, starting with the clichéd idea of “aloha” meaning both “hello” and “goodbye” before putting a dark spin on it that made it his own.

Jokes about Hawaii not really being part of America — with a nod to U.S. Attorney General Jefferson Sessions — went over surprisingly well with the local audience, as he noted how the state is “the most chilled out” place he’s ever been and then talked about giving paddleboarding and surfing a shot this week on his first trip to the islands, culminating in a well-told story about nearly drowning with a punchline that had the audience laughing loudly.

The degree of difficulty of what Noah pulled off here should not be overlooked. Comedians generally work out new material before club audiences repeatedly to sharpen their word choice, timing and delivery. I don’t know if he wrote this material in Hawaii over the past few days, but given his hectic schedule, it seems unlikely Noah had much opportunity to test a bunch of Hawaii jokes before live audiences on the mainland, not to mention that a New York City club would be a tough place to gauge how Hawaii jokes will go over in Hawaii. Either way, he produced a solid group of jokes about Hawaii and made them look polished yet effortless.

The topper was his set of observations from his first luau, from his take on the hula to his joy not just in watching the show, but in watching “white people” watch the show. (Let’s just say he noticed how much women at luaus love the male dancers.)

An uneven bit on “pilot voice” bided time before he got to his meat and potatoes (politics), though it did pay off at least in a well-executed joke that saw the gifted impressionist combine pilot voice with his Obama impression.

He also squeezed in a funny piece on why he flies “Muslim airlines” whenever possible.

Noah then devoted the last third or so of his just-over-an-hour set to the United States’ new president.

The sharpest take he offered was that Trump seems to want to BE president but doesn’t seem to want to DO president, but the funniest (and perhaps the funniest joke of Noah’s set) was his description of the Trump presidency as both “terrifying and hilarious,” comparing it to an asteroid hurtling toward Earth, but in the shape of … er, something not-safe-for-this-newspaper/website.

The jokes about Trump were a nice bone to throw to his “Daily Show” fans while being broad enough that even fans who aren’t up on every bit of news about the administration could enjoy them.

Besides the political content in his act, Noah had one other surprise for his Hawaii audience — a 17-minute opening set from “The Daily Show” colleague Roy Wood Jr., who had the heavily liberal audience in from the jump by calling Hawaii “the state that stopped the Muslim ban.”

But Wood also won approval with great jokes — from discovering the benefits of going to protests he has no connection to (“I can leave whenever I want”) and why museums make for great first dates (easy way to learn how smart your date is and you can disappear for 20 minutes at a time) to how hard it is to be a newbie at wine (you have to study the history of every bottle!) and why the FitBit makes a terrible present (it is a constant reminder of “how lazy you are”).

Wood’s set was so raucously received by the audience that it may have put more pressure on Noah than he bargained for. Fortunately for his audience, he was up to the task.