Sky TV<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nYou might\u2019ve heard that British comedy is kind of a big deal. How could a half-century-old American format improve upon such a proud tradition?\u00a0<\/p>\n
But, hey, isn\u2019t that how the original show began in NYC \u2014 as a hugely doubted underdog?<\/p>\n
Both the 1975 program with Gilda Radner and Chevy Chase and the 2026 British one were scrappy and unfamiliar to skeptical audiences and faced mass confusion in the lead-up: What exactly is this and why is it happening?\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the mid-1970s, \u201cSNL\u201d became a smash that made superstars of its young cast.<\/p>\n
Five decades on, you could feel those same plates shifting after the astounding first UK cold open on March 21.\u00a0<\/p>\nA \u201cTraitors\u201d spoof was called \u201cGreat Big Crab Man.\u201d Sky TV<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nGeorge Fouracres played Prime Minister Keir Starmer, a tail-between-his-legs Dilbert type who most Americans don\u2019t care much about or even know. He interpreted him as a scared little gerbil while the dweeb fretted over phoning President Trump about the war with Iran.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll try anything, I\u2019ll do anything. Except take a stand,\u201d Fouracres\u2019 Starmer nervously sputtered.<\/p>\n
It was the kind of pure-gold political satire our \u201cSNL\u201d \u2014 which leans nasty and infantile \u2014 is no longer capable of. They took an otherwise boring politician, much like George H.W. Bush or Al Gore, and boiled him down to his ridiculous essence. And to extremely embarrassing effect.<\/p>\n
Starmer must be mortified. I would\u2019ve loved to have seen his face when Trump, who also got dinged in the skit, posted the mocking sketch on social media the next day and rocketed \u201cSNL UK\u201d to a perch of instant cultural relevance.<\/p>\nOne sketch mocked UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer\u2019s flip-flopping on his former ambassador to the US, Peter Mandelson.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nThen last week, Fouracres\u2019 PM returned on a reality-TV sendup called \u201cWho Wants To Remain A Millionaire?\u201d on which he got a question about former ambassador to the US Peter Mandelson, a friend of Jeffrey Epstein\u2019s.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs it ever a good idea to give Peter Mandelson a job?,\u201d the host asked. The answers were: A) No; B) Of course, not; C) Not in a million years; and D) Yes.<\/p>\n
Starmer asked to phone a friend.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho\u2019re you going to call?,\u201d the host replied.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d like to call Peter Mandelson.\u201d<\/p>\n
Absolutely hysterical.<\/p>\nJack Shep became a breakout star for his perfect impression of Princess Diana. Sky TV<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nThe \u201cUK\u201d cast is made up of all unknowns \u2014 for now. Nobody has been hanging out for 20 years yet, and so every sketch brings with it the excitement of discovering what else they can do.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jack Shep has been a major force this season. On the first episode, the 26-year-old got a lot of praise for his perfect impression of Princess Diana.<\/p>\n
A week later, he was another, more controversial royal: Prince Andrew.<\/p>\n
The scene was set in 1997, and Andrew was summoned to the headquarters of MI5 to discuss a top secret project: A 29-year plan to make his brother Prince Charles look better by comparison before he eventually becomes king.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd you actually want me to do all this stuff?,\u201d he said. \u201cEven the part about befriending a notorious pedophile?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\nA popular sketch suggested Prince Andrew\u2019s downfall was a plan by MI5. Sky TV<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nThe non-topical sketches and videos have been just as strong. A spoof of the TV show \u201cTraitors\u201d was called \u201cGreat Big Crab Man,\u201d and in it a contestant played by Emma Sidi kept guessing that everybody around the table was the Great Big Crab Man except the actual red, shelled Great Big Crab Man.<\/p>\n
And in a deranged pre-tape, host Riz Ahmed played a man who became dangerously obsessed with the board game \u201cOperation.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The show is still \u201cSNL,\u201d of course. It will inevitably have some dips. If the program lasts, it will get new cast members we\u2019ll insist are much worse than the old ones.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But in these glorious early days, it\u2019s abundantly clear that out-of-luck Rockefeller Center could use a British invasion.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\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 celebrity.land \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Live from New York it\u2019s . . . the second-best \u201cSaturday Night\u201d?\u00a0 It makes me feel for-Lorned to say it. But \u201cSNL UK,\u201d the brand-new British counterpart to the 51-year-old American sketch-comedy series is, frankly, kicking NYC\u2019s arse. I watch both shows every week \u2014 UK airs here Sundays on Peacock \u2014 and the pattern […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2399400,"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":[25174],"tags":[21741,305353,21890,21913],"class_list":["post-2399398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gossip","tag-entertainment","tag-lorne-michaels","tag-saturday-night-live","tag-tv"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/SNL-UK-is-putting-the-second-rate-American-original-to-shame.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2399398","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=2399398"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2399398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2399401,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2399398\/revisions\/2399401"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2399400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2399398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2399398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2399398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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