British comic Oliver's twist of fate? A 'Daily Show' gig.

John Oliver has been in New York for more than a year now, plying his talents as a political comedian as a correspondent for "The Daily Show." It was his dream job, the one he thought about when he was appearing on panel shows for the BBC, bored with the prospect of trying to shout over several other comics, watching Comedy Central's flagship show on his native England's More4 channel. He's not quite sure how he got here, and he's sure it's some kind of mistake.

"You always have imposter syndrome with stuff like this, and I've deliberately not asked how it came about out of fear that something went wrong," he says, by phone from the show's New York office "I don't want to highlight the mistake and have them go, 'Oh, oh, yeah, that's not who we meant at all.' "

Oliver, who performs at the Comedy Connection tomorrow night and Saturday, was writing for the BBC and playing London's clubs when he got the call. He had never been to America before he came to work last July, and he didn't have much time to adjust to his new surroundings.

"I got in really late Sunday night and thought, I guess they'll break me into work slowly," he says. "I got in Monday morning, having woken up on the sofa, and they said, 'All right, you're on tonight, Bush has said something to Blair.' It probably worked out best because I didn't have time to realize how scared I was."

The 30-year-old comedian is getting a strange firsthand glimpse of American culture, interviewing what he calls "classic field-piece crazies" for the show's signature segments and following the campaign trail. Oliver is an avid follower of politics and says Europeans are generally familiar with current events involving America, but he has been surprised by some aspects of the presidential race, most notably the emphasis on religion.

"That first debate when [former Arkansas governor Mike] Huckabee and two others put their hands up for, 'Who here doesn't believe in evolution?' I think that's ludicrous," he says. "He cannot surely be a credible candidate now, but his approval ratings are going up. That's absolutely insane."

Oliver looks forward to covering the election for "The Daily Show," saying, "it's a fascinating time to have no incumbent and some relatively significant choices." But he doesn't neglect his own country's history in his act, specifically British imperialism.

"I tend to talk about how you have no idea what it's like to be British," he says. "We've done terrible things to the world, and you're not even getting close to our record. You watch the news, there's trouble in Kashmir and Iraq, that's essentially our fault. Take it any distance of time back, we did that."

Fans of Oliver's whip-smart perspective on "The Daily Show" should see roughly the same thing this weekend at the Connection. "It's probably pretty similar," he says. "I'm not going to come out with a bag of props like Carrot Top."

John Oliver is at the Comedy Connection tomorrow at 8 and 10:15 p.m. and Saturday at 7, 9, and 11:15 p.m. Tickets are $25 at 617-248-9700 or comedyconnectionboston.com.

A "Daily Show" bonanza

It's a good week for "Daily Show" fans in the Hub. Stephen Colbert's "I Am America (And So Can You!)" is out in bookstores, and both John Oliver and Lewis Black are in town. A bonus for fans of Black, here for the Boston Comedy Festival: Comedy Central announced the "Daily Show" commentator will debut his own show in March called "The Root of All Evil."The show will feature Black judging which current pop-culture punch lines of the week are most evil. Different comics will argue for specific targets - Paris Hilton versus Dick Cheney or Michael Vick versus Michael Richards - and Black will weigh in at the end. Black is expected to remain a "Daily Show" contributor after the series debuts.

Around town

The Boston Comedy Festival winds down this weekend with two gala shows and a smattering of showcases. Lewis Black & Friends, with DJ Hazard, Lizz Winstead, and Ed Byrne, is at the Cutler Majestic Theatre tonight, and the Boston Comedy Awards, which include lifetime achievement awards presented to Bill Dana and Shelley Berman (Mort Sahl won't be in town to collect his), and the culmination of the festival's weeklong comedy competition.