Saturday Night Live UK’s maiden voyage is almost complete: this Saturday, Doctor Who star Ncuti Gatwa will host the series one finale of the much-discussed spin-off of the American sketch institution. But it’s not goodbye – we already know the cast are returning in autumn for a bumper 12-week run, proof that Sky are pleased with how their pricey punt has turned out. As well they should be: predictions that SNL UK would be a national embarrassment have been categorically rubbished.
It hasn’t all worked. The opening monologues, in which celebrity guest hosts veer between gushing praise for the show and an eye-watering celebration of their own CVs, remain irredeemably American. And while the team have valiantly attempted to parody our current prime minister, mining comedic gold from Keir Starmer does seem to be an impossible task.
As for the skits, there have – as with every single sketch show in history – been misses. Yet week after week, we’ve also been treated to a stream of hilarious and gratifyingly weird material that has made SNL UK must-watch TV for comedy fans. And it’s not too late to get on board. Catch up with this rundown of the best sketches so far.
For its debut, the show recruited a safe pair of hands: Saturday Night Live veteran Tina Fey guested as the first episode’s reassuringly slick host, easing cast and audience into the British offshoot. Yet it quickly became clear that this version wasn’t intending to hedge its bets in general. A face cream that makes you look so youthful everyone thinks your spouse should be arrested? “My skin looks so fresh my husband can’t go anywhere without being hunted by rightwing paedophile-catching militias!” brags one woman in the spoof skincare advert to end all spoof skincare adverts. It’s a premise so neat I can’t believe it’s never been done before – but thank goodness, because nobody could have executed it with a more perfect balance of provocation and peppiness.
When it comes to timely comedy about technology’s deleterious impact on humanity, where on earth do you start? With the minuscule x’s in the corners of pop-up ads, that’s where! This sketch imagines the enshittification of the internet as the work of a crack team of hyper-caffeinated web developers who devote their lives to the cause. Do they get paid? “No, but let me ask you this,” counters Hammed Animashaun’s triumphant head of operations. “Do you get paid for your job?”
Jack Shep and Larry Dean are two Scottish brothers who run a food truck serving flavoured baked beans in this spot-on pastiche of the blokier corners of the culinary social media scene. Their heartfelt origin story hinges on the kitchen nous of their beloved nanny, Sue – who unfortunately turns out to be a depraved criminal. Cue their punchy sales pitch descending into a meditation on hereditary evil. (For some reason this masterpiece hasn’t been clipped online, but you can watch it as part of episode two.)
Most parodies of The Traitors seem to revolve around Claudia Winkleman’s fringe. This one revolved around the fact that contestants of colour often get banished first. It’s a near-the-knuckle piece of social satire, but this sketch lightened the mood by interrogating its uncomfortable truth through a crab-based lens. All-round great guest host Riz Ahmed plays the unfairly suspected party.
Yes, Jack Shep’s Diana, Princess of Wales was instantly iconic, but the same can’t quite be said for the confusing David Attenborough-based sketch it arrived in. So here’s the best cold open of the series instead, in which Shep plays a different member of the royal family. The Prince Andrew Plan has a spine-tinglingly clever premise: what if everything the Windsors have done over the past 30 years has been part of an MI5 conspiracy to make King Charles look good in comparison? Emma Sidi’s wide-gaited Fergie is an extra treat.
An app that matches you with your ideal dad via an “advanced algorithm”? Fine. But it might end up changing your life in ways you never intended. The twist in this sketch is far too good to spoil – more proof that, much like the original SNL, ensemble spoof adverts are a consistently winning format for this show.
