<\/p>\n
LONDON<\/strong> \u2013 \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d<\/a> has crossed the pond with a mild splash.<\/p>\n A British offshoot<\/a> of the 51-year-old U.S. comedy institution has debuted to generally positive reviews, defying doomsayers who doubted the show would survive the trans-Atlantic journey.<\/p>\n The format<\/a> of the first episode of \u201cSaturday Night Live UK\u201d stuck closely to the U.S. original. The 75-minute show opened with a skit showing Prime Minister Keir Starmer seeking help from a Gen Z adviser about how to talk to President Donald Trump, before the proclamation: \u201cLive from London, it\u2019s Saturday night!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSNL\u201d veteran Tina Fey<\/a> was the host, taking questions during her opening monologue from celebrity audience members Michael Cera, Graham Norton and \u201cBridgerton\u201d star Nicola Coughlan, who jokingly warned Fey that \u201cBritish people tend to root for the failure of others.\u201d<\/p>\n Certainly, many in Britain had predicted the show would fail, and reviews expressed surprise that it was \u2014 largely \u2014 pretty funny. The Telegraph newspaper called it \u201cshockingly competent\u201d and \u201coccasionally hilarious.\u201d<\/p>\n There was widespread praise for the cast of largely little-known comics: George Fouracres, Hammed Animashaun, Ayoade Bamgboye, Larry Dean, Celeste Dring, Ania Magliano, Annabel Marlow, Al Nash, Jack Shep, Emma Sidi and Paddy Young.<\/p>\n As in the original, the show featured topical comedy, offbeat sketches, fake commercials and the \u201cWeekend Update\u201d spoof of the news, as well as a guest musical act, the English band Wet Leg. Some of the humor was mildly edgy, including jokes about pedophiles, the Epstein files and disgraced royal Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.<\/p>\n Apart from the accents, one difference from the American original was the expletives. British broadcasting rules allowed for a liberal sprinkling of F-words.<\/p>\n Since its debut in 1975 \u201cSNL\u201d has become a pop-culture institution and helped launch the careers of generations of comedians, from Bill Murray<\/a> to Eddie Murphy<\/a> and Gilda Radner<\/a> to Kristen Wiig<\/a>.<\/p>\n Efforts to replicate its success in other countries, such as France, Japan and Italy, have typically been short-lived, though a version of the show remains on the air in South Korea.<\/p>\n The U.K. offshoot, which has \u201cSNL\u201d creator Lorne Michaels as executive producer, airs on the relatively little-watched channel Sky One and the NOW streaming service. But social media may bring a much bigger audience for clips. Fey\u2019s monologue had more than half a million views on YouTube by noon on Sunday.<\/p>\n The initial run is only eight episodes, and it remains to be seen how the cast fares without Fey\u2019s assured guidance. Future guest hosts include Jamie Dorman and Riz Ahmed.<\/p>\n Nick Hilton in The Independent said the first episode’s sketches included \u201ca handful of hits,\u201d but also moments when it seemed like \u201ctepid cosplay\u201d of the U.S. original.<\/p>\n Charlotte Ivers in The Times of London felt that \u201cthe spark is not there yet,\u201d but The Guardian\u2019s Lucy Mangan praised the program’s ambition.<\/p>\n \u201cIt did not fail. And in the coming weeks, let\u2019s hope, it can build toward real success,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.wsls.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" LONDON \u2013 \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d has crossed the pond with a mild splash. A British offshoot of the 51-year-old U.S. comedy institution has debuted to generally positive reviews, defying doomsayers who doubted the show would survive the trans-Atlantic journey. The format of the first episode of \u201cSaturday Night Live UK\u201d stuck closely to the U.S. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2340908,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[403835,453725,453731,345616,453727,22389,305348,453729,21741,453724,352679,453732,369482,310569,453730,305353,388332,319414,453726,348493,453728,359367,348301],"class_list":["post-2340907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-andrew-mountbatten-windsor","tag-ania-magliano","tag-annabel-marlow","tag-bill-murray","tag-charlotte-ivers","tag-donald-trump","tag-eddie-murphy","tag-emma-sidi","tag-entertainment","tag-george-fouracres","tag-graham-norton","tag-jack-shep","tag-keir-starmer","tag-kristen-wiig","tag-larry-dean","tag-lorne-michaels","tag-lucy-mangan","tag-michael-cera","tag-nick-hilton","tag-nicola-coughlan","tag-paddy-young","tag-riz-ahmed","tag-tina-fey"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Saturday-Night-Live-UK-aims-to-take-a-comedy-hit.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2340907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2340907"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2340907\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2340909,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2340907\/revisions\/2340909"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2340908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2340907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2340907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2340907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}