How do I check for the existence of a particular MySQL table using PHP? (Using an IF statement.)

I need to check whether or not the table ‘content’ exists in a particular database using PHP. If the table doesn’t exist, I need to handle the situation differently.

I basically need an IF statement to check for the existence of this table. How should I do this? I’m looking at ‘show tables’, but can’t really see how I would deal with the data in the application. Any help would be appreciated.