The reviews are in for Saturday Night Live UK, hosted by Tina Fey with musical guest Wet Leg in its debut this weekend.
The sketches on the first-ever international spinoff of Lorne Michaels’ hit NBC show — impressively executed by a relatively unknown cast and watched on Sky by over 220,000 people — were wide-ranging and made use of the U.K.’s over-performing rolodex of British talent.
The cold open began with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer (played as a dawdling, anxious mess by George Fouracres) enlisting the help of a Gen Z consultant (Jack Shep) to work up the courage to send a voice note to U.S. President Donald Trump and declining to go to war with him. “I’ll do anything,” says Fouracres as Starmer. “Except take a stand.” Hammed Animashaun was on standby as a sycophantic deputy PM, David Lammy.
Then it came to Fey’s opening monologue from a set not dissimilar at all from its American counterpart. “It’s an absolute honour and kind of historic,” said Fey to the live audience. “Guys, I am the youngest person to ever host SNL UK!”
Fey was made to answer a couple of queries from the crowd, including from Bridgerton‘s Nicola Coughlan, in the first of several celebrity cameos across the night. Why not get a British icon, such as David Beckham, Judi Dench or Shrek, said the Irishwoman, to host the inaugural episode? “How do I put this politely?” answered Fey. “None of you fuckers would do it.”
Michael Cera was also in attendance, probing Fey on why the Brits are allowed to swear on this version of SNL — after 9 p.m. in the U.K., known as the watershed, anything goes — and Graham Norton even appeared to help Fey with managing the crowd. “I have a gift for making American celebrities likable to a British audience,” said the chat show host.
This was followed by a string of well-performed sketches, including: A spoof skincare advert where the women look so young that their partners are arrested for being paedophiles, a David Attenborough-hosted Last Supper with dead celebrities such as Winston Churchill, Princess Diana and Freddie Mercury, who were far too taken with which nibbles to order for the table, and a Hamnet sketch with a Shakespeare too vain to return his wife’s affections. What started as a Paul Mescal-esque “cunty little earring” and “slutty little chain” ends in Hamnet accidentally snorting ketamine from his father’s bag.
In a segment aimed to recreate the success of Colin Jost and Michael Che’s “Weekend Update,” cast members Ania Magliano and Paddy Young got in some searing one-liners at the expense of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and the Beckham family fallout. Then came a Fey-led bit with a live Paddington Bear experience, but the bear was a real bear attacking innocent families.
The final sketch of the evening — in which another Bridgerton star, Regé-Jean Page, took Fey out for a drink after a bra department attendee named Jugs (Emma Sidi) exaggerated the size of her “bazonkers” — was also well-received.
Reactions to the spin-off were mixed, with an industry understandably anxious about how the tone of NBC’s live sketch show would translate across the pond, where the humor is often not so slapstick.
The Telegraph gave it four stars out of five, writing: “Tina Fey shines as guest host in shockingly competent spin-off… Predictions that a transatlantic SNL would crash and burn proved wide of the mark.”
The Guardian, meanwhile, said the show “didn’t fail and could have been a lot worse.” Lucy Mangan wrote: “Some may feel they — 11 actors and a 20-strong writing team drawn from more than 1,200 applicants — only just got away with it, but others will feel they managed a bit better than that.”
Over at The Sunday Times, the outlet declared: “Britain is funny but this isn’t yet.” Charlotte Ivers said about the edgy jokes: “There’s something quite refreshing about seeing TV comedians really push close to the line… [But] sadly, in many cases the jokes don’t live up to the risk.”
Another three out of five stars came from Nick Hilton’s The Independent: “Some hits, some misses, and a bang-on Princess Di impression,” he said, adding: “Judging a show like SNL off its opening episode is foolish. The chemistry between the cast needs time to settle, and the reaction on TikTok and Instagram will likely inform which sketches have legs… and which end up in the writers’ room bin. What SNL UK’s opening episode does demonstrate is a willingness to push the envelope, to risk bad taste.”
“Borrowing a beloved American format might feel a bit stale, but there are notes of new ingredients that could offer something fresh,” he added.
The sentiment online was also mixed, with Richard Osman and Richard Bacon among the TV personalities telling followers that they loved the first episode. “Really pleasantly surprised,” said one user on X. “Some bits were obviously stronger than others but that’s the nature of sketch comedy. I thought it was a really strong start to the series and it can only get better from here as they discover what works and what doesn’t through trial and error.”
Another said it was “hit and miss,” saying: “You can’t put out a show every week and expect it to be gold, but there’s enough there that I’d watch it again.”
For U.S. viewers, catch SNL UK on Peacock the day after episodes air in Britain. The show’s first season has been extended from six episodes to eight, with Riz Ahmed and Jamie Dornan among the upcoming hosts.
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