It would be fair to say things are about to get very real for Trevor Noah, his international late night hosting début just a few weeks away. We’ve already seen a couple of teasers ahead of the big day (HERE and HERE), now the local lad is featured in a big Vanity Fair spread sat amongst his peers.

Let’s take a look at that picture before we get really stuck in, Noah and the likes of Colbert, Conan and Jimmy Fallon looking dapper.

If you’re thinking this who’s who of late night telly looks a little male-dominated you would be right, the magazine offering this:

What’s conspicuously missing from late-night, still, is women. How gobsmackingly insane is it that no TV network has had the common sense—and that’s all we’re talking about in 2015, not courage, bravery, or even decency—to hand over the reins of an existing late-night comedy program to a female person? While Amy Schumer has acknowledged that she turned down The Daily Show, happy where she is at Comedy Central, that doesn’t mitigate the fact that Chelsea Peretti, Megan Amram, and Jen Kirkman, to name but three contenders, are alive, sentient, funny, and presumably open to taking a meeting…

Fortunately, comedic redress is on its way, in the form of two new shows created from scratch, Samantha Bee’s for TBS and Chelsea Handler’s for Netflix. (Both shows are due in 2016.) Two female hosts plus the 10 men featured here is still a long way from a late-night that truly looks like America. But the next version of this story’s opening picture will be that much brighter.

Trevor Noah himself was quizzed on the lack of women hosting their own shows (and across the comedy board in general) in Newsweek and had the following to say:

“I don’t agree with the notion that there are no women in comedy,” Noah said…”I would even argue that women are more powerful than men in comedy right now. If you look at the top comedy actors, Melissa McCarthy by far is killing most of the numbers of other actors. You look at Amy Schumer right now—I would argue that there is no more preeminent voice in comedy. Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, their movies coming out…”

“Yes, that Vanity Fair [spread] is all men, which is what it is,” Noah said. “But I guess what we need to look at is how is that evolving? The first step in that is you go, OK, there’s two men of color. That’s a big jump. Pretty soon there will be a woman that’ll be added to that. And there will probably be more women, which is gonna be fantastic. And over time, that’ll happen; it’s a conversation that we need to continue having.”

Trevor will begin his biggest job to date on September 28, although given the reaction to some of his old tweets he may want to tread lightly during his opening few weeks.

[sources:vanityfair&newsweek]