I joined SNL UK’s first live audience (Saturday 21st March) excited and cautiously optimistic. Excited because SNL since birth has been a benchmark for sketch comedy worldwide.
But cautiously optimistic – why?! Because it could be less than good, ensuing a huge media pile on and causing the UK to swerve making large scale sketch comedy, for a generation. So, as professionals in comedy, it’s fair to say a lot of us had skin in the game here.
But SNL UK didn’t disappoint, it took big comedy swings with style and confidence. Entering the studio and seeing the set (Shoreditch industrial chic reimagined by a Brooklyn centric AI), the red ‘applause’ signs and the sketch scripts written on massive cue cards was real comedy geekery.
Once on air, the Keir Starmer cold open provided genuine laughs and the audience relaxed into the experience. Then Tina Fey’s monologue made it clear that ‘SNL may have built the house’ but SNL UK was ‘our manor’ and she was going to commit to Mrs Slocombe and Dot Cotton impressions to prove so. As the first guest host it felt like she was ably cheerleading the show, the cast and the writers.
The show careened from sketches about reincarnated British icons via Gen Z speak on the maternity ward to the weekend roundup and an immaculate hipster Hamnet that all felt joyously home-grown and hilariously raucous.
However, the American SNL system of scrapping sketches after the earlier full dress rehearsal meant that there were a few cast members I’d wish to see more of but as the weeks go by this system will ensure the best possible sketches and probably a new stand out member of the cast each week.
Also the comedy felt unabashedly representative of the strong female voices performing and writing on the show, which was evident in a painfully relatable sketch about bra fitting. I look forward to watching this Saturday’s show at home and for the first time in a long time there’s appointment to view comedy on telly!
Saturday Night Live UK is now available to view on Sky One and streaming service NOW – visit the website here.
