Amish: The World’s Squarest Teenagers- Sundays @ 8pm Channel 4- 8 out of 10

If there is one thing the Daily Mail has taught me, it's that people who are different to me are to be distrusted, stigmatised and are to be very fearful of because they may well cause some new kind of cancer. Of course, this is complete bollocks but that's the world we live in, negative influences are an awful lot more powerful than positive ones.

Which is a shame really because really, deep down, we are all very similar, something very much proven by Amish: The World's Squarest Teenagers.

Despite being marketed as a "look at the people that are different to us and laugh at them for it" kinda show, it really is much more than that. It is on Channel 4 remember, not BBC3 although there are elements of the 'point-and-patronise' style of documentary making so favoured by the Beeb's downmarket third channel.

The show centres on taking five young people from an Amish community, those folk with barns and awesome facial hair, out of their comfort zone each week, living with British teenagers from different social groups and seeing how they react and interact, like a good old fashioned social experiment.

In the first episode, the five young Amish (they're not teenagers, one is 23 for Gord's sake) stay with a group of teenagers in South London from Black and Asian backgrounds. They go off to a park to play rounders, they go shopping, they talk about how people get stabbed and shot near their homes, all nice wholesome, Christian stuff.

However, for a group of young people who have never encountered crime, violence, sex before marriage, single mothers and all of London's pleasures, the Amish kids take it remarkably in their stride, showing a very high level of maturity. To their credit, the British yoofs are very similar with their respect towards Amish beliefs.

No scene demonstrates this more than when one of the British teenagers, a young female Muslim, takes them to a mosque for the first time and rather than feeling threatened by it , the Amish are curious and recognise the similarities between the two faiths not the differences. But hah! They don't know who John Lennon was so let us laugh on them!

On a serious note, this documentary provides a welcome contrast to the stereotypical picture of today's teenagers painted by the tabloids, showing them as mature human beings, more than capable of interacting with those different to them and respecting their beliefs, hobbies and way of life. Bravo!

All in all, for the Amish folk, it's all very similar to a middle class, British person's gap year experience, only they tie it into the Amish tradition of Rumspringa which sounds like a German heavy metal festival. Anywho, the concepts are basically the same; it's all about finding yourself, cha?

Overall, Amish: The World's Squarest Teenagers continues the fine tradition of Channel 4 documentaries that are genuinely interesting, thoughtful, measured, sensitive and, yes, entertaining from which the BBC should take a number of notes, primarily "1. This is how it should be done!!!" Although, the forthcoming episode looks far more of a challenge for the Amish however, with a very different British teenage lifestyle- the white, indie, hippie, cross over cunts with all their booze, weed and stupid curly hair.