Saturday Night Live boss Lorne Michaels has revealed just how high his hopes are for the UK version of the show – and let’s just say, the pressure is on for the Brits.
SNL UK, the first international version of the US juggernaut, launched on Sky and Now TV last month, and the inaugural episode was hosted by one of the original version’s most successful alumni, Tina Fey.
With three episodes having aired, Michaels has now shared his vision for the British programme, revealing his “design for it was that it would be the cooler of the two shows”.
In comments first reported by Variety, he added that SNL UK should be “smarter, funnier and more original” than the long-running US show.
“It had to be its own thing,” Michaels said. “It couldn’t be an imitation of what we do.”
The 81-year-old was speaking at the premiere of his documentary, Lorne, in Los Angeles on Tuesday night.
For the most part, SNL UK has had a decidedly British feel. After Fey, Jamie Dornan, Riz Ahmed and Jack Whitehall bravely took on hosting duties.
The show is taking a break this weekend, before Bridgerton’s Nicola Coughlan and Sex Education star Aimee Lou Wood front the next two episodes.
Sketches have so far included send-ups of Sir Keir Starmer, David Lammy and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, while Weekend Update has put a satirical spin on news stories including Scott Mills’ sacking and Wireless Festival’s Kanye West controversy.
Michaels revealed he speaks to UK showrunner James Longman and head writer Daran Jonno Johnson “all the time”, but added: “It has to be their show because I can tell you how I would do it — I’ve been doing it for 50 years, and it’s pretty well known how I would do it — [but] you have to do it your ways.”
A six-episode SNL UK run was originally commissioned by Sky but this was extended to eight before the first instalment even aired. The sketch show has been warmly received by viewers, while critics have offered mixed reviews.
The Independent‘s TV critic Nick Hilton argued “SNL UK lacks its own spark of irreverence”. “At best it shows what it’s learnt from a half-century of its New York cousin; at worst it seems like tepid cosplay,” he wrote.
Ratings-wise, SNL UK has likely been hindered by the fact it cannot be watched for free. After a promising start, with 226,000 people tuning in to the series premiere, the average viewership had dropped to 130,00 by episode three, according to BARB figures.
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