John Oliver is not excited to see his home country’s version of Saturday Night Live because he just doesn’t see its “cult”-like culture translating to the U.K.
Oliver said that making a British version of the show “sounds like a terrible idea,” when he appeared on Late Night with Seth Meyers on Monday.
“It’s a cult, and so I don’t know how you can impose that cult onto the UK,” Oliver explained. “It just feels like Saturday Night Live is such a unique group. It’s a cult. I’m trying to not say the word.”
Without the “great leader” dynamic the U.S. show has with Lorne Michaels, Oliver said it seems unlikely to be anything but “bad.”
Pressed by Meyers on what is the most “cultish” thing about SNL from his perspective as an “outsider,” Oliver joked that it was “lots of it.”
For example, the long-running tradition that Michaels has imposed of making the writers work all night long on Tuesdays. “That’s the kind of thing a cult leader would make you do,” Oliver said.
Meyer acquiesced that one could probably make “great comedy” without “staying up all night.” Oliver added, “I think it’s been proven that SNL is the outlier.”
The British version of the late night sketch show is slated to premiere some time in 2026, with Lorne Michaels set to executive produce. Saturday Night Live UK will reportedly have the same fast-paced format and feature weekly guest hosts and musical performances just like the original, according to Sky News. The show will open with a similar version of the famous SNL opener, “Live from London, it’s Saturday Night!” But Oliver said it’s unlikely to hold water without that special “cult” sauce.
How can it be as funny, Oliver posited, if “it doesn’t have to be dictated to the day that you must not sleep on that day or the great leader will be irritated,” he joked, to laughs from the crowd.
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