“Saturday Night Live” did not produce a new episode last week from New York’s Studio 8H — but it’s likely creator Lorne Michaels had a lot on his hands anyway. On Saturday, former SNL cast member and comedy royalty Tina Fey hosted the premiere of “Saturday Night Live UK,” a London-based spin-off of the 51-year-old U.S. series.
“Why do a UK version of SNL?” Fey said during her opening monologue. “Well, like so many large-scale American operations these days, no one really knows why.”
After over 1,000 episodes, SNL has a pretty standard formula, and in her monologue, Fey made it clear that this show wasn’t going to be too different. On most Saturdays, audiences in the United Kingdom will be able to tune in to Sky One for live sketch comedy each week with a different celebrity host and musical guest; for the premiere, British indie rockers Wet Leg did the honors.
With an 11-person cast of English and Scottish comedians, SNL UK is a smaller operation than the U.S. version, but they’ve also enlisted a live band, while the sets have a shabbiness that recalls SNL’s earliest seasons. Fey said she was there, as an American and “a longtime SNL employee,” to help get the ball rolling. Here’s what to know about “Saturday Night Live UK”:
Why is there a UK-based SNL?
Not long after Sky Comedy started rebroadcasting the U.S. series in 2020, its parent company started talking with SNL producers about creating a spin-off. It’s not the first time that it’s happened: “Saturday Night Live” has been attempted in China and Italy, and a South Korean edition is still running. But after Michaels got involved as a producer in 2025, Sky ordered a brief season, with the possibility of an extension depending on its popularity.
Is it different from the original show?
Fake ads about skin care. Jokes about the Epstein list. Cast members trying not to laugh. The structure and sensibility of SNL UK felt close enough to the original series that you’d be forgiven for not noticing an immediate distinction. Over the episode, differences accumulated through the cultural and political references. Instead of a cold-open laughing at President Donald Trump, George Fouracres played British Prime Minister Keir Starmer attempting to figure out how to work diplomatically with him. (Shockingly, Trump was a fan, sharing an edited version of the sketch on Truth Social.) And during the “Weekend Update” segment, hosts Paddy Young and Ania Magliano focused on former royal Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Brooklyn Beckham’s feud with his father, not the Oscars or Tucker Carlson. One other important difference: “We’re allowed to swear in this version of the show,” Fey explained, cuing up a handful of F-words throughout the episode.
How can Americans watch?
SNL UK episodes will stream on Peacock the day after they air. Future hosts include Jamie Dorman and Riz Ahmed, while planned musical guests include Wolf Alice and Kasabian. For the little-watched Sky One channel, the premiere’s nearly 230,000 viewers was a success. But much like the American show, sketches have the potential for a long afterlife on social media. By Monday, several sketches had over 500,000 views on the Sky TV YouTube account.
Is it any good?
Much like the original show, the premiere of SNL UK was uneven and scattershot but not without laughs. One sketch focused on a movie influencer (Hammed Animashaun) gushingly interviewing his favorite stars (played by Fey and Jack Shep). But when it came time to discuss their latest film, he couldn’t hold back. “It sucked, so bad, like all the way through,” Animashaun asked. “What happened?”
Another scenario followed veteran British TV host David Attenborough, played by Fouracres, as he reincarnated some of England’s great heroes for a dinner — Winston Churchill, Isaac Newton, Agatha Christie and Princess Diana, given a tentative, hilarious portrayal by Shep. But the dinner quickly devolved into a fight about what they’re ordering and how much it would cost, while Fouracres-as-Attenborough grew increasingly agitated.
One of the most inspired choices of the evening was the musical guest, Wet Leg, a rock group more ferocious and thrilling than any act that’s played the U.S. version of SNL so far this season. Vocalist Rhian Teasdale traversed the stage on her knees, sauntering into the audience for “Catch These Fists,” while the rest of the band thrashed through the number. Wet Leg’s loose performance carried over, at times, to the show itself. Between shaky camera zooms and awkward technical delays, SNL UK still feels like a troupe finding their voice.
Critics largely felt similarly. “It did not fail,” Lucy Mangan wrote for the Guardian, proposing that “in the coming weeks, let’s hope, it can build towards real success.” Others writers thought that SNL UK should have taken bigger swings. “It’s a bit of a shame, then, that the show plays it so safe with the formula,” wrote Nick Hilton in the Independent, “importing a commodity that has evolved from an antiestablishment brawl to a slick launchpad for franchise comedians.”
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