Saturday Night Live UK review: it didn’t fail and could improve

In the end it’s a feeling: the inaugural episode of Saturday Night Live UK did work. Eleven actors and a 20-strong writing team drawn from more than 1,200 applicants gave a show that began with George Fouracres’s Keir Starmer cold open and ran into a guest monologue from Tina Fey.

The monologue started stilted — Nicola Coughlan’s cameo didn’t land — but warmed up and finished on a high with Graham Norton’s pop quiz on Britishisms. Some sketches landed better than others. Pedolay’s Undérage, a skincare-range send-up, delivered a disturbingly funny payoff; a bloated David Attenborough Last Supper piece at least produced a strong Diana from Jack Shep.

Hammed Animashaun was excellent as an unflinchingly honest film critic and later in a sketch about making the internet “as bad as it can possibly be,” while a laboured birth sketch about an attention-seeker fell flat.

United Kingdom

snl uk, tina fey, keir starmer, graham norton, nicola coughlan, david attenborough, hammed animashaun, jack shep, undérage, pedolay