I liked the Starmer sketch and the first bit of Fey’s monologue. The Helium joke was quite good but surrounded by a lot of clunkers in the newsroom sketch, the Paddington sketch was an amusing take on Wonka but really only a 1-note joke. The Attenborough sketch was amusing when it appeared that all the “great” people were just going to argue about petty bill sniping when they had only an hour for discussion but the ending was pretty poor.
The Underage sketch really made no sense with live action actors who we could actually see.
The Shakespeare one was just awful.
All in all it was more miss than hit, probably won’t watch again.
If you’re familiar with the American version of SNL, you know that traditionally most of the shows have been hit or miss, with one or two sketches in the entire show that really score.
Did the UK version have Weekend Update? That’s traditionally the strongest part of the show, and even it is only about 2/3 good.
It seems weird to me that it’s only after the original American show has been on for over fifty years that anyone thought to export the concept. And of course, there have always been many sketch comedy shows in the UK.
I don’t watch SNL here in the US, so perhaps the following comments based on the Weekend Update clip are gratuitous:
Didn’t like the way the woman smirked at her own jokes. The man was slightly better in this regard.
I would expect a British version to be more topical to the UK, and therefore more-or-less incomprehensible to Americans. Even the Andrew formerly known as Prince is international news. Too bland.
For the Attenborough sketch, how well known are Mary Seacole, Benjamin Zephaniah, and Cilla Black? I only about Seacole, and that’s only because she was in a Doctor Who episode. Are the other two obvious choices for dead Britons who would make great dinner guests, or are they just easily imitated?
Seacole has definitely been given a lot of raised prominence recently as people scrabble to find examples of black Britons who are historical figures. Zephaniah I’ve heard of but really don’t know much about.
Black was a long running “national treasure” but probably included just for the mannerisms.
Here is a list of the various international versions of SNL:
The only thing different about the new SNL UK is that it will be produced by Lorne Michaels. The other versions were based on the American SNL but produced by other people. So this can be expected to be closer to the American version. Incidentally, do you all know that Lorne Michaels was born in Canada, although since the late 1960s he’s spent most of his time in the U.S.?
I watched it. I watch the American SNL every week, and watch a lot of British panel shows, so I kinda am a good person to give an opinion on it?
I thought it was great! I had very low expectations for it. It’s nice they have a cast of unknowns. It would be very unfair to have all of the regular panel show folks.
I think it would rank up there with the best episodes of the last 2 regular SNL seasons, to be honest.
Surprisingly, I found Weekend Update to be the weakest. Ania is the only cast member I was familiar with, from Taskmaster, and she and the other anchor did not impress me at all. Hopefully that gets better.
Very, very weak. British comedy is capable of much better than trying to replicate SNL. I think Tina Fey hosting was an appropriate nod, but ultimately indicative of the biggest weakness - it’s an imitation at best. If the American version of SNL were a big hit in Britain, I could understand it, but it’s not, and there are good reasons for that. SNL with a British accent is not SNL UK. Some of the bits were funny - a lot of the Keir Starmer bit was hilarious, but trying to replicate the American cold open took away from it. Graham Norton was funny. Nicola Coughlin was not. 99% of the show was about being able to say ‘fuck’ on TV in Britain. They were clearly pandering to Americans watching (and I’ll bet most of the viewers were American anyway).
Full disclosure: I’m American and grew up on SNL from the original to the Eddie Murphy era. I think American SNL is borderline funny, but I watch it anyway, even though I’m not the target audience. I’ll probably approach the UK version the same way, but I really expected them to have better musical guests.
Several programmes or series were remade in the US based on the UK originals (Shameless, The Office, etc) and in many cases, the first episode or so was almost word for word the same.
I think for The Office that’s a requirement from the original producers. It’s fun because you can watch the pilot of the various international versions and follow along even if you don’t know the language.
