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Chevy Chase, John Belushi, Bill Hader, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler — comedian Michael Che has written himself onto a crowded Saturday Night Live (SNL) honour board.

The latest star of the legendary US weekly sketch show, 34, returns to the UK for the first time in three years with a stand-up gig at the Union Chapel, Islington.

In that time his rise has been spectacular: he is now co-anchor on the Weekend Update with Colin Jost (a satirical take on the news, the show is SNL’s longest-running recurring sketch), he was elevated to one of the show’s head writers last November, and still finds time for up to eight stand-up slots a day around his native New York on non-SNL weeks, jogging from EastVille Comedy Club in the East Village to the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater East, sprinting to the Comedy Cellar in Greenwich Village, then hailing a cab uptown to Carolines on Broadway, cramming them into around two hours.

“Your job’s like a relationship, it’s not work when you actually love the gal,” says Che. “If you don’t love work then you’re just having sex with her for money.”

He’s missed us Brits, sort of. “The thing I actually missed most was Nando’s, which you can’t get in the States. You think you can do without everything until it’s gone and then you think ‘I needed that’. Anything else? “I loved Mr Bean. It used to come on the Public Broadcasting Service in America. All he wanted to do was eat his sandwich and something would go wrong. That’s life, really. You just want to eat your sandwich.”

British audiences have a “longer attention span”, he admits. “They’re a bit better behaved. When I first did a gig here, the guy on before me opened with a long-ass shaggy-dog story, with no pay-off until three or four minutes before the end. In the US no one wants to hear that. They say ‘make me laugh, say something funny, tell jokes’ constantly.”

Among other accolades, Che is the first black head writer of SNL in its 48 years. “Here’s the thing about being the first black anything,” he says. “It was impressive when you couldn’t be something because you were black. SNL didn’t have a rule — it’s not like there couldn’t be a black head writer, there just hadn’t been one. Jackie Robinson was the first black baseball player in the major leagues because they wouldn’t let black people play baseball major leagues. That’s significant because he changed the rule. What it does mean is that as a head writer you can change the conversation. You can help dictate the tone of the show”.

That means more sketches, such as Che’s episode featuring Tom Hanks on spoof US game show Black Jeopardy, which has 29 million views on YouTube, with a wry take that sees Hanks’ character, a white, “Make America Great Again” hat–wearing southerner, shocked that he’s identifying with the issues of his fellow contestants, who are all black. It also means more Weekend Update spots like his acerbic takedown of President Donald Trump’s poor response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico (“This isn’t that complicated, these people need help, you just did this for white people”). “Someone tells you a headline and you say the first funny thing you can think of about that headline. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s not. As the great Patrice O’Neal said, you get paid for the attempt.”

Has Donald Trump been a gift for a comic? “He dominates the news cycle so you’re constantly talking about him. But it’s the same conclusion: he’s inept and a maniac. It ends up being tiresome. But he’s the President, so how do you not talk about him? It’s more of a hindrance. I’d rather talk about other things — how the oceans are dying, how the bees are going away, how we’ve got about 100 years left on this planet. But I’ve got to talk about the President.”

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Che grew up in New York, among Lower East Side’s low-income high-rises, the youngest of seven children (four brothers, two sisters). His mother and father, Rose and Nathaniel Campbell, separated, and his mum worked three jobs to support them (his father, incidentally, named him after Che Guevara). “My mum pretty much raised me, and I’d see my dad on weekends. They’re good, poor folk, you know?” he says. A talented artist, Che attended the Fiorello H LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts. He didn’t start performing stand-up comedy until he was 26, when he started going to open-mic nights in Greenwich Village. “I’m the only one in my family in show business.”

There’s no significant other — “although I’ve got a couple of insignificant others” — and he doesn’t plan on leaping to Hollywood like so many SNL alumni. “SNL’s one of the best things I’ve got to do with my life. You can learn everything there, and it’s live so once it’s over, it’s on to the next one.” The run goes on.

Michael Che is at the Union Chapel, N1 (unionchapel.org.uk) on July 30

@fish_o_wick