When it was first announced that Saturday Night Live would transfer to the UK, I called the show “doomed”. I was writing on a heady wave of confidence. British audiences are derisive about importing American formats, the show’s cast of young comics seemed absent the necessary star power, and the series was due to air on Sky One, a channel that no one (except, perhaps, Richard Branson and the Duke of Westminster) can afford.
And yet the show is back now for a second series, which kicked off last night with renewed vigour. So, is SNL UK turning into a bit of a sleeper hit? Back in March, Fouracres raised the curtain on the first series playing Keir Starmer.
Times have changed, but the sources of comedic inspiration are reliable. The Royal Family make an appearance (“don’t tell me you’ve spent all your Netflix money!” Charles (Larry Dean) laments to a returning Harry and Meghan), as does Celeste Dring’s Claudia Winkleman impression (the return of The Traitors in a couple of weeks will likely prove irresistible to the writers’ room). The only new cast member – Freddie Meredith – debuts in a passable scene in which he plays a young man being fed pick-up lines by Jeff Goldbum, who hosts this episode.
Without wishing to demean the enormous charisma of Mr Goldblum, one does sometimes have the sense that he will do anything for attention. After Tina Fey opened the first series, there seemed to be a dearth of A-listers willing to cross the pond for this SNL franchise. And so, Goldblum (who was also the top line guest on the first episode of Claudia Winkleman’s ill-fated chat show) is, at least, a genuine international star.
He plays, well, Jeff Goldblum in each of his sketches, the highlight of which is a musing on imaginary friends with a genuinely heart-breaking punchline. SNL sketches are always spotty, and this season opener is more miss than hit. There’s a good gag at the heart of Gregor J Dupont (Fouracres, again), a thespian who dresses up as a baby to prepare expectant parents, yet the delivery rips off Brian Butterfield, Peter Serafinowicz’s business guru, and the tone feels cadged from Ollie and Archimedes, a pair of verbose British tots who appeared on Very Important People.
Ania Magliano and Paddy Young (who should be incorporated into more of the main sketches, in my opinion) return to Weekend Update, and the material continues to be enjoyably edgy. Magliano muses that Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland is really more of an “old classic for Germany”, while Young observes that Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu might’ve thought that “Burnham was just something you do to refugee camps”. While the gags in this section are largely quite sharp, the delivery is a tad stumbling.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
