After half a century, Saturday Night Live has been adapted for Blighty with the launch of SNL UK.
The first of eight episodes aired with guest host and SNL pro Tina Fey, guiding through the inaugural roster of young, up-and-coming comedians.
SNL UK went up against over 50 years of stateside success and heavy UK scepticism, and came out in a promising fashion.
The perfect recipe
Firstly, sketch comedy is something of a fine art in the UK, with the likes of Harry Enfield, Paul Whitehouse, Alexander Armstrong, Ben Miller, Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie being shining examples.
Secondly, topical comedy shows are a staple and have been wrought in a distinctly British flavour thanks to shows like The Day Today, Brass Eye, Have I Got News for You, The Mash Report and Mock the Week.
Finally, anyone with a smartphone in the UK will realise that our shores are awash with talented, diverse, creative and objectively very funny young comedians and sketch creators.
These are three perfect ingredients to make SNL UK a success, especially given the fact that the cast is made up of those fitting in the final category of the aforementioned three-pronged recipe.
The scepticism over SNL UK surely comes then, from the source material, with the original Saturday Night Live feeling distinctly un-British in its comedy, and its format being very hit-and-miss.
Some sketches work, some don’t, some are too long and overstuffed, and some are underbaked.
SNL UK’s inaugural episode felt very much the same, with some duds and some sparkling moments.
The good outweighs the bad
What makes this episode a great success is that the sparkling moments outweigh the duds, an incredible achievement in this live format with a young cast.
Sure, the Keir Starmer cold open was obvious, and the David Attenborough’s Last Supper sketch didn’t really make sense (although it included an incredible Princess Diana impression by Jack Shep), but the positives were clear to see.
Hammed Animashaun’s brutally honest film critic telling Fey and Shep’s actors their new movie “fucking sucked,” was a delight, as was Animashaun’s consistently strong contribution throughout the show.
Keeping ‘SNL UK’ distinctly British is best
The two greatest moments of the night came when SNL UK leaned further into its localised tag.
Ania Magliano and Paddy Young were exemplary when it came to the ‘Weekend Update’ news segment.
Brutal, biting and scathing of the likes of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, jokes of incest at the core of the Beckham family feud and cast-member Al Nash as a crazed Captain Birdseye was just what the doctor ordered.
Magliano and Young handled the segment brilliantly, and fans of The Mash Report would have felt right at home during this viewing.
To cap things off, one of the SNL UK debut show’s star performers, George Fouracres, did a rambling, bite-sized ‘45 seconds with Fouracres’ bit called ‘What kind of Irish is your grandad?’.
A blitz of pitch-perfect Irish impressions was done in a flash.
It was weird, made little to no sense, but was crucially very funny.
Herein lies the pure promise of SNL UK, and the crucial point is akin to another major UK/USA comedy translation: The UK Office transforming into The US Office.
The US Office became a major hit when it quit mimicking the UK original and became distinctly its own.
Through time, and trusting its British talent and sensibilities, one can easily conceive that SNL UK will truly become something great when it frees itself from the shackles of its U.S. predecessor.
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