Meet Dan Corder, South Africa’s John Oliver

American-style late-night television is generally not a global phenomenon, although John Mulaney and Netflix are dipping a toe into the notion.

Various attempts at emulating American late night have been tried, with intermittent success, in different places over the years: Canada, England, Ireland, even Germany, which for years had a successful late-night star named Harald Schmidt whose show emulated—down to the color of the stage floor—David Letterman’s CBS show.

But somebody in an unexpected corner of the world is currently putting on a show that is, unabashedly, inspired by a specific American late-night original, namely John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight on HBO.

That somebody is Dan Corder, and he’s a rising star in the entertainment/political commentary world of… South Africa.

No, you probably haven’t heard of him. Why would you? He’s operating in a different hemisphere.

But Americans would instantly recognize Corder’s show. In fact, they have. When a group of 16-year-old exchange students joined his studio audience recently, the host was immediately impressed with the young Americans.

“They knew exactly what was going on,” Corder says, speaking by phone from about 8,000 miles away. “They knew when to laugh, they knew how it works, which I really appreciated because in South Africa my show is the only one of its kind. Sometimes my South African audiences don’t know how to participate.”

What they are seeing is a format extremely similar—deliberately so—to Oliver’s. Corder does not hesitate to give credit, calling Oliver “the love of my life”—professionally speaking. “I love the long-form exposé, heavily researched information dumps that have some humor.”

A glimpse at Corder in action validates the homage. A recent show had him behind an Oliver-style bluish desk, in front of a similar skyline backdrop, calling out a familiar target: Donald Trump, in this case, for offering refugee status to economically privileged white South Africans,

It’s not exactly same. Oliver wears a suit. Corder wears an open-necked shirt with rolled-up sleeves, and no jacket. He’s also thinner, younger, and wears a beard.

Oliver also undoubtedly has a somewhat larger staff. Corder’s staff consists of just three— his brother James, a longtime pal named Eric, and himself (addition to hosting, also writes the entire show).

“The funding for South African television is so small, it’s just like do-it-yourself,” Corder says.

His viewing audience is also relatively small, but there are reasons. The country is massively complicated, with about a dozen languages and numerous TV networks. Corder doesn’t pull in even a million viewers, and that’s not because the population is modest. South Africa has about 63 million people, as many as the UK, and more than France, Italy, Spain and Australia.

But Corder’s show, only about a year old, has buzz. It plays on South Africa’s equivalent of CNN, and is much-talked about in political and comedy circles.

It also airs at 9pm, which is actually a late hour in South African culture.

The ride has been fast for Corder, who is 31 years old. He began a not-yet-focused career in college radio, then segued to commercial radio, where he quickly rose to host in the breakfast hours.

Feeling he had to express himself in other ways, he gravitated to TikTok, where his comedic commentary “just exploded.”

He sensed that the news networks in his country were not preparing smart coverage for elections and expected several to come calling in need. They did, but most didn’t want his outspoken views, “just my audience, and my youthfulness.”

The eNCA network told him they wanted him to do exactly what he had been doing. “I decided to seize the moment,” Corder says.

And he has, which thankfully has meant not facing corporate interference despite taking on the entire South African political establishment. “I’ve never had to back down,” Corder says.

Throughout his career journey, Corder has been, as he puts it, “an American late-night TV obsessive.”  He was first hooked by Stephen Colbert. “I adored him because he did political comedy and talking about the news.” He watched Jimmy Fallon and enjoyed his “apolitical light entertainment style.”

He watched old tapes of Craig Ferguson. He caught up with Jimmy Kimmel. Then he discovered Jon Stewart. “I was hooked. I’d watch hours and hours a week.”

But John Oliver hit closest to what he was trying to do. “I’m probably most stylistically similar to him. He and Jon Stewart are my absolute north stars.”

Corder has never done stand-up comedy, nor sketch comedy, though he believes he could now. Stand-up is certainly big in his country, with no star bigger than Trevor Noah, whose stand-up specials in South Africa were the stuff of legend before he left for the U.S. and The Daily Show.

Corder says, “I learned how to be conversationally funny.”

Of course, his comedy can’t escape the now-towering shadow of its most famous native, Elon Musk. Musk is a frequent subject and target of his show.

“There are many in South Africa who laud him as a South African on the global stage. And there are South Africans who are completely revolted by him,” Corder says.

In a recent show, Corder called Musk a liar for posting that his Starlink can’t operate in South Africa because he isn’t black. Corder presented the evidence that wasn’t true and said: “That is what we in the world call a lie.”

So far, Musk has not called for the staff of the eNCA network to be fired en masse.

Corder hopes to perhaps expand his show to twice a week at some point (and maybe hire some writers), but he would also like competition.

“My dream is that our show becomes a springboard for many other TV shows like this. They can out-compete us; they can be funnier than us, they can be bigger than us. I don’t care. I just want the fleshing out of the culture and this style of television in South Africa.”

Full episodes of The Dan Corder Show can be viewed on eNCA’s website.

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