Saturday Night Live is surely only funny if you’re American. Can a UK spinoff really make Britain laugh? | Emma Brockes

2026-03-12 - 10:23

Forget the kneejerk negativity. If the sketch show’s British talent strikes the right tone, Saturday night comedy could become a family ritual A strong contender for the most depressing four words in the English language – after “I’ve started a Substack”, obviously – is the formulation, “topical sketch comedy show”, a line that will yank many of us back to painful memories of late night Channel 4 in the 90s. British telly has never excelled at this live comedy format, or maybe, depending on your view, nowhere has. Near the end of this month, Sky is launching a UK version of Saturday Night Live, that most revered of American staples and a holy grail for US comedy writers going back to the 1970s. If it seems like a strange import, it may be that, as the dusty original fields kicks from all sides, SNL UK has a prime opportunity to reboot the franchise. The curious question for observers is whether there are things so rooted in their original context they can’t be expected to travel. We’ve seen a lot of this going in the other direction, with disastrous US remakes of British TV shows, such as Skins (cancelled after one season), The Inbetweeners (ditto) and any British show featuring actors who look ballpark normal, recast with Americans who look like Kristi Noem. (For my money, even the US version of The Office didn’t really work, although nine seasons and everyone else say otherwise). US television imports to the UK, meanwhile, have mostly been gameshows or reality TV, so SNL is a newish experiment. And yet the kneejerk response to news of its commissioning – see John Oliver, calling it a “terrible idea,” per GQ’s reporting – has been overwhelmingly negative. Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...