When Saturday Night Live first aired on network television in 1975, it was chaos. A 30-year-old Lorne Michaels stormed onto American airwaves with his ragtag cast – known as the Not Ready for Prime Time Players – including future stars like Chevy Chase, Dan Ackroyd and Gilda Radner. It was spontaneous television that became an anarchic hit and is, more than 50 years later, being refashioned for British audiences in the form of Saturday Night Live UK. With a new suite of accents and a novel set of pop culture references, will it recapture that early magic or prove an underwhelming replica?
For the launch, American comedian Tiny Fey has been roped in to host the Sky One debut. “I’m just here as a longtime SNL employee to help out,” she jokes in her opening monologue. Why no British host? “None of you f***ers would do it,” Fey explains, deploying the first of many obscenities (the primary ideological diversion from its American kin). Still, Fey is game to indulge singularly British jokes, including references to Come Dine with Me and Noughties adverts for Autoglass. Joining a young, talented cast of comics – Taskmaster’s Emma Sidi is probably the best known – Fey proves a capable, experienced doula for this arrival. How the next two hosts – Jamie Dornan and Riz Ahmed – fare may be a better indicator of the show’s ultimate longevity.
