Sky has revealed more about its plans to bring Saturday Night Live to the UK.
Phil Edgar-Jones, Sky’s executive director of unscripted originals, said he wanted the remake of NBC’s iconic sketch show to bring “chaos” and “noise” to the screen.
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“It’s exciting, a little bit scary as well,” Edgar-Jones told the Edinburgh TV Festival, revealing that Sky talent scouts are in the Scottish city assessing the next generation of comedy stars at the Fringe.
Edgar-Jones, who spent time embedded with SNL creator Lorne Michaels and the team in the U.S., confirmed that James Longman, executive producer of The Late Late Show With James Corden, will become showrunner of the UK version. Deadline first tipped the news in April.
The series will be filmed in a BBC Studioworks facility, which Edgar-Jones hopes will “capture the intimacy” of the NBC version.
He said the show will be true to the American original but “has to be a very British thing” if it is going to resonate with audiences in the UK. “It’s going to be a big employer, which is great,” he added. Michaels’ Broadway Video and Universal Television Alternative Studio are producing.
Sky’s UK version will launch in 2026 and become the most high-profile international version of the venerable NBC late-night show after remakes in China, Germany, Italy, and South Korea.
SNL is well known to comedy fans in the UK, but is more closely associated with viral online clips than full episodes on television. Sky only began airing full versions in 2020, while the show briefly featured on ITV4 in 2006. The UK version has been in the works for several years, with Deadline first revealing it was being developed at Sky in 2021.
The UK does not have a fantastic record of attempting to imitate late-night American comedy series. ITV’s The Nightly Show was critically panned and dumped after one season in 2017. Channel 4’s 10 O’Clock Live aired for three seasons at the start of last decade.
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