{"id":843026,"date":"2026-03-22T15:13:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T15:13:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/843026\/"},"modified":"2026-03-22T15:13:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T15:13:20","slug":"celebrity-cameos-edgy-humor-and-mixed-reactions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/843026\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrity Cameos, Edgy Humor and Mixed Reactions"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe reviews are in for Saturday Night Live UK<\/a>, hosted by Tina Fey<\/a> with musical guest Wet Leg in its debut this weekend.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe sketches on the first-ever international<\/a> spinoff of Lorne Michaels\u2019 hit NBC show \u2014 impressively executed by a relatively unknown cast and watched on Sky<\/a> by over 220,000 people \u2014\u00a0were wide-ranging and made use of the U.K.\u2019s over-performing rolodex of British talent.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe cold open began with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer (played as a dawdling, anxious mess by George Fouracres) enlisting the help of a Gen Z consultant (Jack Shep) to work up the courage to send a voice note to U.S. President Donald Trump and declining to go to war with him. \u201cI\u2019ll do anything,\u201d says Fouracres as Starmer. \u201cExcept take a stand.\u201d Hammed Animashaun was on standby as a sycophantic deputy PM, David Lammy.<\/p>\n

\n\tThen it came to Fey\u2019s opening monologue from a set not dissimilar at all from its American counterpart. \u201cIt\u2019s an absolute honour and kind of historic,\u201d said Fey to the live audience. \u201cGuys, I am the youngest person to ever host SNL UK<\/a>!\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFey was made to answer a couple of queries from the crowd, including from Bridgerton\u2018s Nicola Coughlan, in the first of several celebrity cameos across the night. Why not get a British icon, such as David Beckham, Judi Dench or Shrek, said the Irishwoman, to host the inaugural episode? \u201cHow do I put this politely?\u201d answered Fey. \u201cNone of you fuckers would do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMichael Cera was also in attendance, probing Fey on why the Brits are allowed to swear on this version of SNL \u2014\u00a0after 9 p.m. in the U.K., known as the watershed, anything goes \u2014\u00a0and Graham Norton even appeared to help Fey with managing the crowd. \u201cI have a gift for making American celebrities likable to a British audience,\u201d said the chat show host.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis was followed by a string of well-performed sketches, including: A spoof skincare advert where the women look so young that their partners are arrested for being paedophiles, a David Attenborough-hosted Last Supper with dead celebrities such as Winston Churchill, Princess Diana and Freddie Mercury, who were far too taken with which nibbles to order for the table, and a Hamnet sketch with a Shakespeare too vain to return his wife\u2019s affections. What started as a Paul Mescal-esque \u201ccunty little earring\u201d and \u201cslutty little chain\u201d ends in Hamnet accidentally snorting ketamine from his father\u2019s bag.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a segment aimed to recreate the success of Colin Jost and Michael Che\u2019s \u201cWeekend Update,\u201d cast members Ania Magliano and Paddy Young got in some searing one-liners at the expense of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and the Beckham family fallout. Then came a Fey-led bit with a live Paddington Bear experience, but the bear was a real bear attacking innocent families.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe final sketch of the evening \u2014 in which another Bridgerton star, Reg\u00e9-Jean Page, took Fey out for a drink after a bra department attendee named Jugs (Emma Sidi) exaggerated the size of her \u201cbazonkers\u201d \u2014\u00a0was also well-received.<\/p>\n

\n\tReactions to the spin-off were mixed, with an industry understandably anxious about how the tone of NBC\u2019s live sketch show would translate across the pond, where the humor is often not so slapstick.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Telegraph<\/a> gave it four stars out of five, writing: \u201cTina Fey shines as guest host in shockingly competent spin-off\u2026 Predictions that a transatlantic SNL would crash and burn proved wide of the mark.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Guardian<\/a>, meanwhile, said the show \u201cdidn\u2019t fail and could have been a lot worse.\u201d Lucy Mangan wrote: \u201cSome may feel they \u2014 11 actors and a 20-strong writing team drawn from more than 1,200 applicants \u2014\u00a0only just got away with it, but others will feel they managed a bit better than that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOver at The Sunday Times, the outlet declared: \u201cBritain is funny but this isn\u2019t yet.\u201d Charlotte Ivers said about the edgy jokes: \u201cThere\u2019s something quite refreshing about seeing TV comedians really push close to the line\u2026 [But] sadly, in many cases the jokes don\u2019t live up to the risk.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAnother three out of five stars came from Nick Hilton\u2019s The Independent<\/a>: \u201cSome hits, some misses, and a bang-on Princess Di impression,\u201d he said, adding: \u201cJudging a show like\u00a0SNL\u00a0off its opening episode is foolish. The chemistry between the cast needs time to settle, and the reaction on TikTok and Instagram will likely inform which sketches have legs\u2026 and which end up in the writers\u2019 room bin. What\u00a0SNL UK\u2019s opening episode does demonstrate is a willingness to push the envelope, to risk bad taste.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBorrowing a beloved American format might feel a bit stale, but there are notes of new ingredients that\u00a0could\u00a0offer something fresh,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe sentiment online was also mixed, with Richard Osman and Richard Bacon among the TV personalities telling followers that they loved the first episode. \u201cReally pleasantly surprised,\u201d said one user on X. \u201cSome bits were obviously stronger than others but that\u2019s the nature of sketch comedy. I thought it was a really strong start to the series and it can only get better from here as they discover what works and what doesn\u2019t through trial and error.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAnother said it was \u201chit and miss,\u201d saying: \u201cYou can\u2019t put out a show every week and expect it to be gold, but there\u2019s enough there that I\u2019d watch it again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFor U.S. viewers, catch SNL UK on Peacock the day after episodes air in Britain. The show\u2019s first season has been extended from six episodes to eight, with Riz Ahmed and Jamie Dornan among the upcoming hosts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The reviews are in for Saturday Night Live UK, hosted by Tina Fey with musical guest Wet Leg…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":843027,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[748,393,4884,522,1144,219665,712,197,238530,27671,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-843026","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"category-united-kingdom","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-international","13":"tag-northern-ireland","14":"tag-saturday-night-live-uk","15":"tag-scotland","16":"tag-sky","17":"tag-snl-uk","18":"tag-tina-fey","19":"tag-uk","20":"tag-united-kingdom","21":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116273480174570974","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=843026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/843027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=843026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=843026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=843026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}