Saturday Night Live is coming to the UK — but we might not want it Sky Comedy will air SNL on Sunday evenings, one day after the live broadcast in the US

Sunday evening sees America’s premiere sketch show Saturday Night Live return to UK television for the first time since 1996. Bought from NBC by Sky for its brand-new channel, Sky Comedy, the show will air every Sunday evening, just one day after it’s shown in the US, somewhat undermining both the “Saturday” and the “live” aspects. Granted, “pre-recorded from New York, it’s Sunday night!” doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.

Obsessed with the increasingly intertwined world of celebrity and politics, SNL has been a comedy stalwart since 1975 and, thanks to its left-wing stance, experienced a new wave of relevance when Obama first took office. While ratings are down compared to the late 2000s, the show, now in its 45th season, is still benefiting from the US political situation. There is a never ending slew of Trump sketches.

Alec Baldwin plays the President in the sketches and his cast of comically reprobate buddies has made SNL’s brand of satire and impressions big news. His last appearance in early December, in which he played Trump as a dunce not allowed to sit with big boys Justin Trudeau, Emmanuel Macron and Boris Johnson (played by James Corden) in the NATO cafeteria, has over eight million views on YouTube and was reported on by The New York Times and Washington Post.

i's TV newsletter: what you should watch next Email address is invalid Email address is invalid Thank you for subscribing! Sorry, there was a problem with your subscription.

But is there an appetite for SNL in the UK? Sketch comedy seems to have declined since Little Britain and Catherine Tate in the mid-2000s, but we were once masters. Monty Python, Victoria Wood, Morecambe and Wise and The Two Ronnies are all inspirations for SNL.

Further attempts at political satire (beyond the apparently indestructible panel show format) have been unwelcome, too. Charlie Brooker’s 10 O’Clock Live was cancelled after three series and while The Mash Report will plod on to a fourth series this year, it’s hardly unmissable television.

Added to this, the scheduling is unfortunate for Sky Comedy. The celebrity hosting the first show to be aired in the UK is JJ Watt, an American football player the average Briton will likely never have heard of. Country singer Luke Combs is unlikely to draw a huge UK audience, either. To have such a lo-fi cast for the first episode doesn’t bode well – perhaps it would have been better to wait another week, when RuPaul and Justin Beiber take the reins.

A lot of the jokes and sketches are also steeped in American culture. The political scenes often require a forensic knowledge of US news. It’s doubtful the average Brit knows who Alan Dershowitz is, but last week’s “cold open” (the sketch shown before the opening credits) was dedicated to sending him to hell. (To save you the hassle, he’s the lawyer currently defending Trump in his impeachment trial.)



Other sketches skewering game show Jeopardy, reworking adverts for Lincoln cars and Totinos, and taking the piss out of The Bachelor could also be lost in translation. Then there’s the annual Thanksgiving special episode and references to in-jokes from old sketches.

There is an argument that funny is funny no matter your cultural experiences, but that’s not the main threat to SNL’s linear-viewing success. YouTube has become invaluable to the show as a brand, with more or less every single sketch uploaded to the site as soon as the live show has aired. Sometimes sketches that didn’t make it to air because of time constraints are also given an airing. YouTube is where many people watch the show (9.66 million users subscribe to the channel with over eight billion views) and what propels its popularity.

Full episodes of SNL will be available on Sky’s streaming service, Now TV, following the Sunday night broadcast, which may go some way to enticing those not willing to sit down and watch Sky Comedy on a Sunday night. But YouTube offers more control – you can watch individual sketches, rather than a 90-minute show – and, crucially, it is available faster than anywhere else.

SNL fills a gap in the UK’s television schedule, as our offering of sketch comedy has dwindled over the past few years. But whether it’s a good investment for Sky Comedy remains to be seen. One way or another, we’ll get a laugh out of it.