Saturday Night Live

[DeMarkay]

NBC’s iconic late-night sketch show could be hitting British shores in the future. Variety has confirmed that a U.K. adaptation of the format is in early development at Comcast-backed pay-TV operator Sky.

The tie-up is hardly surprising given both Sky and NBC share the same parent company, and such collaborations have been mooted ever since Comcast outbid Fox to snap up the European media company for $39 billion back in 2018

https://variety.com/2021/tv/global/satur...235130789/

[VMPhil]

Just going to put out a very early prediction that this will not work, whatsoever.

[Humphrey Hacker]

Didn't Lee Hurst host something similar in the mid 1990's?

[Brekkie]

C4 have had a few attempts at shows in that vein. Think the first took the title but had at least one series on the Friday. Then there was the Friday Night Project which was relatively successful and most recently the show that got axed after one episode whose name escapes me.

[Gary Baldy]

Isn't Spitting Image our version of SNL? I've spent a fair enough amount of time in both Britain and the states to be familiar with what formats of TV work in each respective country, and I don't think SNL done the US way would work at all. Spitting Image is the closest we've had (and the gone-too-soon "Newzoids") It'd be the same old faces trotted out- Jimmy Carr, Kath Ryan, Rob Beckett, Romesh, Joe Lycett, Sara Pascoe and the likes, who are great value on panel shows but I couldn't see them working in sketch shows.

ITV2's attempt at the "Stand Up Sketch Show" was disastrous- I gave it a watch as I like sketch comedy, but the laughs didn't come at all- maybe that's just due to the roster of comedians on that respective episode? I'm not sure if it was (is? Did the show get axed?) a revolving cast or not.

Personally, I'd have a cast of Harry Hill, Robert Webb, Joe Wilkinson, Milton Jones, Cariad Lloyd, Holly Walsh, Ellie Taylor and Roisin Conaty, but with a few unprolific comedians thrown in there.

[GMc]

I always thought that The Friday Night Project was like the UK's version of SNL, and a decent effort at that. I wasn't keen on it moving to a Sunday though.

[Steve Williams]

Didn't Lee Hurst host something similar in the mid 1990's?

That was ITV's revival of Saturday Live in 1996. Of course, the original Saturday Live/Friday Night Live in the eighties was a hugely successful show, with Ben Elton and Harry Enfield. The first series of that, with guest hosts every week and topical sketches, was probably the nearest we've had to an SNL in Britain, but even that became a much straighter variety bill by the end.

It's a format that British TV has quite regularly tried to replicate, this was ten years ago for example - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b011kmcy - but it's not one that's ever really caught on. It's a valuable show in the US for new talent in front of and behind the camera, but in the UK we have panel shows doing a similar job.

[Humphrey Hacker]

Didn't Lee Hurst host something similar in the mid 1990's?

That was ITV's revival of Saturday Live in 1996. Of course, the original Saturday Live/Friday Night Live in the eighties was a hugely successful show, with Ben Elton and Harry Enfield. The first series of that, with guest hosts every week and topical sketches, was probably the nearest we've had to an SNL in Britain, but even that became a much straighter variety bill by the end.

It's a format that British TV has quite regularly tried to replicate, this was ten years ago for example - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b011kmcy - but it's not one that's ever really caught on. It's a valuable show in the US for new talent in front of and behind the camera, but in the UK we have panel shows doing a similar job.

I knew it was something similar. Its a shame that we didn't get a similar long lasting show here but I'd hazard a guess that that was down to the lack of a "writers room" style setup here.

[Ash101]

C4 have had a few attempts at shows in that vein. Think the first took the title but had at least one series on the Friday. Then there was the Friday Night Project which was relatively successful and most recently the show that got axed after one episode whose name escapes me.

Host The Week? Wasn’t it Scarlett Moffat on the only episode?

I don’t quite know why they didn’t see the run through, I can imagine we’ve seen ratings just as bad since!

[Brekkie]

That's it. Yes - the second week was due to be Jack Whitehall who would have been far better. Launching with an untested reality star was foolish - although she held her own better than most.

It had quite a nice ensemble from what I remember so was probably more in the SNL mould than some other examples. I'm sure it was only due to be 3 or 4 episodes anyway.

[Inspector Sands]

That was ITV's revival of Saturday Live in 1996. Of course, the original Saturday Live/Friday Night Live in the eighties was a hugely successful show, with Ben Elton and Harry Enfield. The first series of that, with guest hosts every week and topical sketches, was probably the nearest we've had to an SNL in Britain, but even that became a much straighter variety bill by the end.

It's a format that British TV has quite regularly tried to replicate, this was ten years ago for example - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b011kmcy - but it's not one that's ever really caught on. It's a valuable show in the US for new talent in front of and behind the camera, but in the UK we have panel shows doing a similar job.

and it doesn't really fill any other niche, the UK has a strong tradition of sketch shows (although going through a lull at the moment) and there's already multiple topical comedy shows every week all doing the same jokes.

I'm not convinced it will work here, but it'll certainly be a lot funnier than the US version, it's been shown here a few times and it's left me cold and wondering what the fuss is about.

[Brekkie]

That reminds me - must get round to watching Age of Outrage.