There are some shows which just chug along in the background, being quitely brilliant, while very few people watch, and The Daily Show - shown every weekday on More4 at 8.30pm - is just one of them. But for those of us who do watch, it's an absolute joy. It's broadcast over here just a day behind the original showing the night before in the US, and it provides giggles and insights into the day's political events.

The main attraction of this show is its host - Mr. Jon Stewart, one of the most charismatic men on TV. Unsurprisingly for a show which is aimed at a college audience (we'll come onto that in more detail later), it's a left-leaning programme, but Stewart *is* harsh on the Democrats when they don't stand up to the government... it's just funnier when he rips into Bush, Cheney et al. The Daily Show may call itself 'fake news', but it's clear that Stewart is intent on cutting through the fakery of US, and indeed world, politics.

Stewart doesn't do it all on his own, of course, the 'correspondents' on the show are just as important. It's a little lottery everyday, seeing who's going to be on the show, but it's always best when John Oliver appears. He's a British comedian who has worked extensively on Radio 4 comedy, and appeared in the early series of Mock The Week, and his work on The Daily Show really is a cut above the rest. Well, except Demetri Martin, a massively successful comic in his won right who pops up about once a month, and who has *such* a brain for comedy, it's actually quite scary. When you get a minute, have a watch of the piece he did about social networking sites, which can be found right here.

Onto the college audience, then. Isn't that amazing? 18 and 19-year-olds, whooping and hollering over dry, and often terribly complicated bits of legislation? (Those of you convinced to start watching should be aware that you won't have a clue what Stewart's going on about half the time, but that it doesn't matter.) We just don't have an equivalent show which gets the same demographic - Mock The Week is really about comedy, not politics, Have I Got News For You concentrates on having a go at personalities rather then policies (Ian Hislop aside) and BBC Four's The Late Edition had no impact on *any* demographic. I really don't know how they got the college kids onside, but it's very impressive.

You won't be surprised to hear that not everyone in the US enjoys seeing their Head of State being mocked every day, and The Daily Show has come under fire for putting the nation's cleverest young people off going into politics because they think all politicians are idiots. Also, it'll be interesting to see how the programme copes if a Democratic government gets in - will it lose its bite? Maybe - all the more reason to get watching straight away, then.