Saturday Night Live UK review: Tina Fey shines as guest host in shockingly competent spin-off (original) (raw)
Opening-night guest host Tina Fey
To the list of things nobody asked for but which have been foisted upon us nonetheless can be added a British version of the long-running and historically unfunny American comedy "institution" Saturday Night Live. The original may have been the comic launchpad for everyone from Eddie Murphy to Will Ferrell but it has for years coasted on its reputation and plumbed genuinely terrible depths when mocking the appearance of actress Aimee Lou Wood last year.
Given that patchy track record, there was every reason to suspect Saturday Night Live UK (Sky One) would land dead on arrival. The cast is largely unknown, Sky's marketing campaign has reeked of desperation and its producer James Longman's previous contribution to humankind was helping James Corden invent Carpool Karaoke.
The cast of Saturday Night Live UK - Charlotte Rutherford
How shocking, then, that the first of eight episodes in a test-the-waters inaugural season should be competent, untroubled by either annoying American-isms and annoying Americans – and occasionally hilarious. The key word here is "occasionally". There was a whiff of hastily written student sketch to a cold open in which George Fouracres impersonated Keir Starmer (described by US website Deadlineas "the technocratic and frankly rather dull UK Prime Minister" in its preview of the show).
But the choppy waters were quickly calmed by opening-night guest host Tina Fey who delivered an assured monologue that featured surprise appearances by Bridgerton's Nicola Coughlan, actor Michael Cera and Graham Norton (ironically, none from the UK – though actual Brit Regé-Jean Page did cameo later on).
Graham Norton and Regé-Jean Page made surprise appearances
Having served as head writer on the American SNL before graduating to movie stardom, Fey was effortlessly commanding, her visible ease with the format seeming to have a calming effect both on the jittery audience and the presumably anxious cast. She, along with the other comedians, also enjoyed the opportunity afforded by British broadcasting regulations to swear like a trooper – a perk denied the American SNL owing to the prurience of US rules around expletives on television.
Tina Fey was effortlessly commanding as guest host
The next 70 or so minutes were hit or miss: a sketch about a performatively bashful baby was surreal but not in a good way, while a parody of Hamnet in which Shakespeare went to London and came home massively into Charli XCX did better, even if it was a good five minutes too long. As with the US original it was all done live – which probably explained the occasional expression of sheer terror that flashes across the faces of the cast.
A sketch about a bashful baby was surreal but not in a good way
The real highlight was the Weekend Update section. This was a sort of parody of the evening news presented by Ania Magliano and Paddy Young, who were full of charm as they side-eyed the camera and struggled to keep straight faces. They fired off stinging and completely non-woke gags about Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Donald Trump. They then interviewed Captain Birdseye, before he headed off to sort out the Strait of Hormuz.
The real highlight was the Weekend Update section, a parody of the evening news
British sketch comedy had been in a slump in recent years and Sky did well to hire members of the highly regarded sketch troupe Sheeps to oversee their SNL, which also featured two brilliantly searing performances by indie band Wet Leg. It was never going to be perfect and Fey's reassuring presence will be missed (future guest hosts include Jamie Dornan and Riz Ahmed).
But the schadenfreude on social media, which predicted a transatlantic SNL would crash and burn proved wide of the mark. Was it a crime against comedy – as the original Saturday Night Live often is nowadays? No – and by any reasonable measure it was off to a flying start.