Freddie Meredith, a new cast member on Saturday Night Live UK season two, joined the show less than two weeks after finishing his first-ever Edinburgh Fringe performance. He now plays a range of characters, from Volodymyr Zelensky to an aroused mosquito, and is bringing his solo show to Soho Theatre.
From Fringe to SNL UK
Meredith was "very close" to getting through auditions for the inaugural SNL UK cast when the show launched less than six months earlier, but ultimately missed out. He remained relatively unknown to wider audiences as he took his show, Need a Light?, to the Pleasance Courtyard, earning a nomination for best newcomer in the Edinburgh Comedy Awards.
He recalls the moment he got the call: "The last Friday of Edinburgh, two more shows to go, I was just having a drink when my agent gets a call. He comes over and says they want you to join the cast and ideally start on Tuesday. It really was out of the blue and a very bizarre, overwhelming feeling of being chosen."
Live TV and Celebrity Guests
Meredith describes the experience of being on live TV with celebrity guests like Jeff Goldblum. "Having never experienced it live with the audience, with the cameras, and he's just there. We've got two minutes till we go live. We're all sitting there and he's over near the crowd dancing and dapping up all the audience members and pointing at me: 'Freddie Meredith, this guy, you're gonna love this guy!' I was like 'What the f*** is going on, this is actually insane.'"
He also worked with Jamie Demetriou, Amelia Dimoldenberg, and Danny Dyer, each bringing a unique energy to the sketches. "He's a hero of mine," Meredith says of Demetriou. "Getting to do a couple of sketches that I'd written as well on that specific show felt really special to me because he's someone that I've always looked up to."
Bringing His Own Ideas
Meredith has been able to pitch his own ideas in the writing room, including one that became an X Factor sketch. "I came in with one idea which turned into the X Factor sketch. I just showed [fellow cast member] Jack Shep the 2011 X Factor opening of Telephone where it cuts to each one singing. We were laughing at it, saying 'Why is it so funny? It's not meant to be funny!'"
The sketch involved a lot of choreography and nearly fell apart in the dress run. "If one person misses their thing, it's a domino effect of it's going to fall apart. But it really just came together on the night, nobody put a foot wrong."
Live Energy and Solo Show
Meredith emphasizes the live nature of the show, which gives it its energy. "It's funny how many people, even my friends, are like, 'Is it actually live? Have you been rehearsing these sketches for ages?' You're just like, 'No, of course it's live. It's so live. It couldn't be more live.'"
He is now bringing Need a Light? to Soho Theatre in London, where he plays a character preparing for an epic night out who ends up befriending audience members in an imagined smoking area. "I was expecting London audiences to be a bit more arms folded, not that festival kind of spirit. Maybe judgy? And they haven't been at all, they've been so nice."
Saturday Night Live UK is on Sky and Now. Freddie Meredith: Need A Light? is at the Soho Theatre, November 9-14, June 14-19.
