A British Version of Saturday Night Live is in the works
The British are trying to copy an American comedy, for once
Aux News Saturday Night Live
The U.K. might be getting its very own version of Saturday Night Live. According to Deadline, SNL reps are working on a deal with British broadcaster Sky, which, like NBC, is owned by Comcast.
Reportedly the new series wouldn’t have the same 11:30 p.m. starting time as the American original, but presumably would still air on Saturday nights. Last year, Sky started airing full-length episodes of SNL on its Sky Comedy channel. Before then, Brits had to rely on YouTube clips to get their Pete Davidson fix. There’s no word yet on who producers are eyeing to join the new version of the show.
It’s interesting to see American sketch comedy transported to the U.K. when sketch shows have been a huge part of the British television landscape for decades. Shows like Monty Python’s Flying Circus, The Mighty Boosh, The Catherine Tate Show, Little Britain, and A Bit Of Fry And Laurie were not only hits, but massively influential on generations of comedians on both sides of the pond. Maybe this means America will start producing more panel shows—another comedy format that’s huge in the U.K. but, with the exception of Whose Line Is It Anyway?, hasn’t quite made the jump across the pond yet.
Oddly enough, from 1985 to 1988, Britain’s Channel 4 broadcast a sketch show called Saturday Live that helped make stars of Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry.
Comedy fans knows that usually the relationship between the two countries flows the other way around, with American shows often adapting British properties. Ghosts, currently airing on CBS, is based on the BBC series of the same name, while Fox’s Call Me Kat is a riff on Miranda Hart’s Miranda. But for every The Office (U.S.), there’s a Skins (U.S.).
This wouldn’t be the first time an international SNL had been attempted. Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Poland, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Finland, and Egpyt have all aired local adaptations.
101 Comments
I just don’t see how this could work. I mean, do they even have Saturdays over there?
They call those LorryLiftMilkteadays
That’s how it’s spelled, it’s pronounced like ‘Keith’.
It’s spelled “Satreday.”
I thought they’d spell it Sæturdae.
“Keitha? That’s a man’s name”
Well so is “Jussie” apparently.
I’d think it would be Jussie=girl
I’d think it would be Jussie=girl
Where can I find a woman like that?Oh, Lovecraft Country
We call them “The Lordship’s Oatcakes” and you’re allowed to wear your flatcap around people richer than you from 3.33pm to 6.27pm when it gets too dark and cold, then we all pile in and watch Doctor Who, Eastenders, Benefits Street and Hurry Up, Mabel!
I mean we do but they are for drinking and watching proper football. No-one will be sober enough for this…..
Yeah, but they call it “chips”.
Damn! Beat me to it!
We have the girl band The Saturdays.
We did but then they broke up.
No, they have Satyrdays.
TIL SNL Japan existed for six episodes back in 2012:
All the shows mentioned as standards are…like KITH and The State: pretaped. It is never clear exactly how much of SNL is actually written in one week, but it does seem the performers only get a week (for the untaped parts). So it is the timeline and the Live that make the difference. Honestly they should create a new not-live show (maybe using half the huge cast) and air it in alternating weeks with SNL and just give the live segments and guests more time to rehearse.
Although the great unevenness of SNL does make me wonder about the value of the format. Why bother what is clearly a horrible process for largely middling-to-bad comedy the chance of a few highly topical jokes when you could just do a scripted show of actually good sketches?
because it’s the livewire aspect of it that keeps people tuning in, but it’s a middlebrow livewire not an Andy Kaufman somebody-could-actually-get-hurt livewire, it’s just enough adderall on the milquetoast, not sprinkled with cocaine as it used to beAnd also because it makes $$$, though I think this step forward may be even more spurred by Lorne successfully turning the cast members into cottage industries where he produces the shows at the same time, they’re then in demand for commercials, which redound to SNL’s benefit, and then the famous ones come back, but the big change is all the successful TV shows from Kenan to Shrill etc.
Maybe this means America will start producing more panel shows—another comedy format that’s huge in the U.K. but, with the exception of Whose Line Is It Anyway?, hasn’t quite made the jump across the pond yet.
They’ve already started filming a US version of Would I Lie To You? Looks like there are some good people involved, so hopefully it’ll be better than US Taskmaster was.
Huh. Executive Produced by Robert and Michelle King, with their Evil star Aasif Mandvi hosting, and Matt Walsh and Sabrina Jalees as team captains.Hopefully it lasts more than the one episode of Taskmaster that The CW aired.
I like a lot of British panel shows, but I can’t see most of them working here, and WILTY probably wouldn’t have even worked as well as it did in the UK without the strength of the Brydon, Mack, and Mitchell. It stands no chance here.Plus, I don’t think Americans in general would gel with panel shows. Whose Line had a following, but I don’t think it was very popular, and all the shows are like that, where winning gets you nothing. That’s not the American Dream. Can you imagine if Ken Jennings just had a closet full of Jeopardy teapots (Or, I don’t know, Waffle Makers)?
The American version of Whose Line is still going isn’t it? It has enough of a following to last this many years. The CW could even pair WILTY with that to try for the same niche audience that appreciates that kind of stuff.
It won’t be as good as the UK show, but it could still be worthwhile if they get it right. Which, yeah, I wouldn’t bet on it but who knows.
Well it was off for a long time before being rebooted with Aisha Tyler. I actually thought that had been cancelled after a few years, but it looks like it had just been cut down to shorter seasons. But it probably would be a good idea to pair them up.
‘Strictly Come Saturday, Innit?’
Pip pip, holes in the toads!
Suddenly I have this amazing picture of Brian Blessed hosting Weekend Update and now I want to watch it.
Fresh horses!
Villager: responding to Boris Johnson’s visit, “Eh, Oim not dead yet!”
“A warning to the people in the front three rows: you will be deafened.”
Michaels hasn’t made enough money in his final years, I see
British humor ranges from very smart, witty satire to completely racist and bad taste jokes passed off as cheeky. This could go either way
I still haven’t recovered from the insane popularity of Hale & Pace.
So what makes it British?
Curry. Ironic, isn’t it?
The apex of British humor is making up a special name for the letter “z” and then replacing it with the letter “s” in most words. “I hate to break it to you, Zed, but you’re out of realise. And organise. Basically any word that has you second-last.” “What about zebra?” “That’s still yours. But we’re pronouncing it with a soft e from now on.”
“Bloody hell.”
“wait till you hear about what they did with all those unscheduled shiploads of the letter U they got”
Haven’t the Brits suffered enough?
I’m sure everyone on the cast will have had their breakout performance at the Edinburgh Fringe.
Fringe: The Groundlings of the UK.
For weekend update, who could they possibly find to be as bland and forgettable as Colin Jost?
If they go to Oxford and pick the whitest guy there, he would look exactly as boring as Colin Jost, but he would have an English accent and therefore be more enjoyable than Colin Jost. Have you ever heard Colin Jost try to say “Saturday?” He sounds like me, but I’m not paid to enunciate on television.
The whitest guy in Oxford? Would he even show up on camera?
Jack Whitehall would play a convincing Colin Jost type.
The only comedian less funny than Jost.
God, what’s the Russian version of SNL like?
It elicits a knowing but somber 1/4 smile.
Mmm, da!
PIVO!
“In my country, no one make joke about government, or they disappear!”*LAUGHTER*
The 1/2 Hour News Hour.
worth mentioning over here there’s an SNL Quebec and they basically just do cover versions of classic SNL sketches in french.
Bonjour! Fete on, Wayne!
Fete on, Garth!
“Plus de cowbell!”
I just remember Saturday Live (technically by that stage it was renamed and moved to an Fridays , and called Friday Night Live) , it was ……not good.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturday_Live_(British_TV_programme)I mean on paper it had a decent cast , but man! it sucked.
I got the some of the Best of DVDs, for the Fry & Laurie stuff, and quickly started to skip through most everything else. There’s a few other fun curios, like early Craig Ferguson, and some of the Harry Enfield bits.
The Ben Elton stuff on it has aged… poorly.
As has Elton himself.
Yeah , Ben Elton on it as a ‘host’ is what sticks out . I mean he’s written some great stuff* , but yeah his old live act just really just seems more annoying than anything than now.( * he also wrote ’We will rock you..The Queen musical ’ though so thats another mark against him.)
It’ll run for 12 years, with a total of 20 episodes.
How long before they get to a Mr. Show adaptation?
Right after they take a crack at The Waggish Lads In The Hall
I think they call it a parlour
They call it “chips”.
The US version of Ghosts is…uhhh…okay. Doesn’t hold a candle to the UK version.
It’s only 6 episodes a season and they’ll run for only three seasons over the course of the next decade.
The British are trying to copy an American comedy, for once
Clearly you’ve never seen the British version of That 70’s Show.They even put the steering wheel on the wrong side!
An era accurate UK That 70s show would need to be called That 70s Programme…and consist of misery , flares*, unemployment, grey concrete buildings with phlegm brown and nicotine yellow decor , oh and most worryingly Gary Glitter.Actually there was a show called The Grimleys ..which is probably as close to a UK That 70s show as you could get (while not being awful).I mean theres also Life on Mars , which isnt a comedy , and not totally accurate**
(*whats even more unforgivable , Tartan Flares)(**…weirdly more its more accurate to the things a kid of the 70s would notice compared to an adult, if that makes sense, possibly due to the age of the shows creators , and possibly ..well if you know how the show , and its sequel Ashes to ashes end, it makes more sense . There was also the US remake which wasnt too bad , and at one point featured Jason O Meara as an Irish actor playing a US policeman playing an Irish criminal (‘Wow Sam ..your Irish accent is amazing!’) )
There have been several more attempts, but they are mostly unsuccessful, so we’ve never heard of them.
What’s the UK equivalent of a writing staff that’s 90 percent male, Jewish New Yorkers who went to Harvard and wrote for the Lampoon?
A writing staff that’s 90% male Cambridge graduates who performed in the Footlights
That is astonishingly accurate.
Actually, a writing staff that’s 90 percent male, Jewish New Yorkers who went to Harvard and wrote for the Lampoon is the American version of a writing staff that’s 90% male Cambridge graduates who performed in the Footlights.The British version came first but it only aired for 12 episodes in the late 70s.
Cor blimy! Have those mingers gone barmy? Everyone knows there hasn’t been a single funny British person since David Lloyd George!
Not one.
I am fairly certain that Canada has never had an adaptation of Saturday Night Live (SCTV doesn’t count).
There was a version in Quebec, in French.
This is anti-Quebec sentiment (or possibly pro-Quebec separatist sentiment).
Reeling off UK sketch shows but not mentioning That Mitchell and Webb Look? For shame
Also, claiming The Mighty Boosh as a sketch show?
The Mighty Boosh is marginally less story-driven than Monty Python’s Flying Circus, which at least had half a bit of string connecting some of the sketches, skits, or japes.
I mean a bit further back there was “The Fast Show” , although I’m not sure how much of that would translate to US readers.
Suit you, sir!
Oooooooooh
Hey, how do you win Numberwang anyway?
The British are trying to copy an American comedy, for onceCalling it a comedy implies it’s funny
So it will have 100 cast members of which 8 are actually shown?
Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson were awesome as The Dangerous Brothers on the old Saturday Live program of the 1980’s.
Maybe it’s just a way they could cull the list of cast members down by sending half of them to do the British version. Like an SNL farm team.Or, the British version might be SNL would just acquire cast members there through transfers
SNL basically only matters because of its longevity or legacy, not because it has a good format that makes sense to start up from scratch somewhere in the 21st Century.
It’s also a generic enough format that basically any live sketch show counts as an SNL remake. Unless they’re doing regional variants of specific sketches, like someone suggested above, there’s no real reason to call it this. Are the British just dying for their own version of Celebrity Jeopardy?
I think what distinguishes it from other sketch shows is that the bulk of it is produced week to week and performed live instead of having things pre-recorded weeks ahead of time like most sketch shows, which keeps things topical and gives the central cast a bit more comradery but also means that a lot of not great stuff makes it to air out of a simple need to fill 90 minutes a week on short notice.
I’d argue that panel shows (which we don’t really have over here) cover the topical piece, and it lands more frequently because it’s just comedians riffing instead of needing to produce entire scenes. Why the need for adding half-baked sketch comedy?
There was also a Saturday Live during the 90s, but it didn’t last long. Granted, I’ve not lived in the UK for seven years so I don’t know what Saturday night TV is currently like, but we have a long, sordid history of variety shows. So why not copy SNL but throw in a few magic segments, maybe a bit where someone juggles, a guy who farts, and an all-girl breakdancing troupe?
Perkins will hate it.
As long as we have Chris Kamara show up I don’t care.
I’ll wait until we get the US version of the British version of the US version.
“Maybe this means America will start producing more panel shows—another comedy format that’s huge in the U.K. but, with the exception of Whose Line Is It Anyway?, hasn’t quite made the jump across the pond yet.”I’ve never understood why the UK form of panel shows never took off here in the USA. Q.I. and the Big Fat Show are endlessly watchable. WLIIA was my introduction to this format in the mid-90’s, and is still fantastic. A UK version of SNL will bomb so bad. It’d be like trying to import a US version of Monty Python in the 70’s.
Honestly, SNL pretty much took a British medium and adapted it for America, adding the twist of doing it live. It’s only fitting that it make its way back across the Pond.For every failed Fawlty Towers adaptation there’s a Sanford and Son (Steptoe and Son), All in the Family (Till Death Us Do Part), Three’s Company (Man About the House), Antiques Roadshow, Dear John, House of Cards, Cosby (One Foot in the Grave), Shameless, and Veep (The Thick of It). When they’re done well, the American versions can sometimes outperform their British counterparts.
“Janet, you dozy slapper!”
It will air at 10:40pm with 8 episodes per series (seasons in the US) and a minimum 15 month wait in between series
I mean, balls to what the initial writer-performer lineup is going to be (just grab whoever’s graduated out of the Footlights lately plus a couple of likely Edinburgh Fringers?) but who the fuck is going to be the Lorne? John Lloyd?