“We as a country, we’re not used to watching live stuff any more,” says Celeste Dring, comedian and one eleventh of the new Saturday Night Live cast.
The This Country star is not wrong. Award shows, Comic Relief, the odd stunt soap episode aside, live TV entertainment – away from sport – is vanishingly rare.
But that’s about to change, with cult US sketch show Saturday Night Live coming to the UK for the first time.
The brainchild of US TV executive Lorne Michaels, and running in America for 51 years, a cast of 11 young comics aged between 26 and 36, and 20 writers are about to give the UK the same Saturday Night Live treatment, broadcasting from Television Centre, TC1, west London, each week.
As the name suggests, it’s absolutely live, there is no autocue, just old-fashioned cue cards. Think the iconic Keira Knightley scene in Love Actually.
A man called Wally Feresten was flown over from the US to train cue card handlers for the show, a niche necessity that those behind the show did not feel could not be scrimped on.
The show is also written and rewritten up to the moment of broadcast, finessing the content, removing the bits that don’t elicit enough of a laugh from the warm-up audience, who watch a dress rehearsal just hours before the show goes to air.
The cast have to be fleet-footed, flexible and ready to drop a scene, or learn a new one, at a moment’s notice. So, could stuff go wrong on the night? And if it does, is it just part of the thrill of live TV?
‘In a way mistakes are useful’
Dring tells Sky News she is actively embracing the potential for chaos.
“I hope so, and I think also to be honest to communicate what the actual show is, which is a live show,” she says.
“We as a country, we’re not used to watching live stuff any more. So, in a way, if the odd thing doesn’t go wrong when you’re consuming it, you might not necessarily be cognisant of the fact that it is live. In a way, mistakes are useful to communicate what it is.”
Fellow cast member Al Nash, a stand-up whose online sketches have attracted over 100 million views on social media, says despite the show’s glossy appearance, “When I’m doing it, I don’t feel like I’m a star… It’s kind of ramshackle…
“You don’t have a chance to think, ‘Do I look good right now?’ It’s just like, get it done, get it over the line.”
Fast, furious and a little bit chaotic sounds exciting, and for some audience members thrillingly reminiscent of teenage years waking up to the Big Breakfast and wrapping up the week with The Word on a Friday night.
Arts and entertainment correspondent
In America, Saturday Night Live is a comedy institution, and Tina Fey a foundational figure.
Once the show’s first female head writer, she’s a safe pair of hands to support its all-new British cast for the UK version, which is being made by the owners of Sky News.
For those working away on the new show, it’s hard to know what’s more terrifying – coming up with script ideas or the prospect of what critics might say?
The problem is that British viewers are effectively coming to this cold, while in America, funny or not, there is great affection for a format that’s been on their screens for half a century.
While the US SNL’s executive producer Lorne Michaels is here to steer the programme towards what works, there’s no getting away from the fact that what makes us laugh over here is very different – the darker and more transgressive aspects of British humour.
While Ben Elton’s Saturday live attempted a very similar format to SNL back in the 1980s it didn’t last long – but could how we consume TV now mean this might just hit the zeitgeist.
Success might not be measured in how many people tune-in to watch the entire show on TV, but in how it’s shared and disseminated online – will clips go viral in the same way they do across the pond?
There is, at least, no shortage of material that’s rife for satire right now.
‘We’ve signed a fun contract’
But is there a balance between surprising the audience and behaving yourself on live TV?
Dring says: “I think it’s just following what you find funny, doing due diligence in terms of being considered, not being reckless or careless, but really just following what you think is funny.”
She adds: “And we’ve signed a fun contract.”
Running with it, Nash agrees: “If we dip below a certain amount of fun, there are multiple electrodes on our bodies, and they shock us. If you ever see me on set, go [mimes being electrocuted] then you know that’s my own fault”.
Dring smiles: “And for me that’s fun.”
‘Starmer’s Starmer is six out of 10’
A brutal six-day work cycle, Monday to Saturday, with Sunday to catch breath, before starting all over again, Nash agrees they’ve been prepping like athletes.
Nash concurs: “I’m certainly spending a lot of time doing keepy-uppies… Instead of writing.”
So, with Trump featuring so heavily in the US version, have the British cast been vying with one another to play Sir Keir Starmer?
Apparently not.
“People don’t have similar casting, so it just kind of comes naturally,” says Dring.
“And if my Starmer is like a six out of 10…” says Nash, before Dring cuts in, “Starmer’s Starmer is a six out of 10…”
“All right,” says Nash, laughing, “Well, it will just defer to the best person who can do it because I think collectively we want the show to just be as good as it can be.”
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As for naysayers, already predicting a live, late-night show can never work over here on this side of the pond, Dring deflects the negative vibes with aplomb.
“I have a certain amount of affection for the pessimism of the British public, I kind of respect it,” she says.
“I feel all right about that, and we’ll do our darnedest.”
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Nash adds: “The idea that it’s going to be a bit naff, it’s just insane to me, because we’re in charge, and we’re going to make it good.”
Forget the fun contract, and bring on the mishaps, as we get ready to embrace a brave new world of British comedy this Saturday night.
Saturday Night Live UK starts on Sky and Now on 21 March, hosted by Tina Fey and featuring band Wet Leg. It will stream on Peacock in the US the following night.
