Will Saturday Night Live Thrive in The UK?

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2:04I mean, I have to try and think that, but right now I've absconded from it to do the podcast and let's just, you know, make it a five-hour one so I don't have to go back. Oh, are you literally avoiding your movers? Oh, I'm avoiding it. I'm avoiding it all currently, yeah. Yeah, and is your husband avoiding the movers? Or is he there? It's not possible, is it, when someone has to do a podcast for both people to avoid the movers? It's very important. You're like one of the soldiers who went off to the war in 1939. I say that every week anyway, but yeah. I'll lay down the whimsy mine I like it in America when people actually move their house they put it on a low loader and drive it down that would be a cool way to move house can you just keep everything and just some things have fallen out of the cupboards when you get there because you've gone over a few speed bumps I don't think we have any in America actually there's beans on the floor and hello by the way to the cabbie I just had Tony who's a listener of the podcast I said if I was writing a cabbie Tony he'd be called Tony I've always got Tonys in my books Thank you, Tony, for listening and to all who listen.

3:05What are we talking about this week? We are talking about Sky has announced that they are making a British version of Saturday Night Live, an official British version of Saturday Night Live. A lot of people have a lot of opinions on it. I have an opinion which is different to many of those. We will be talking about that. I suspect your opinion might be different to mine as well. Marina? You don't know that. What else? I'm guessing. We're also going to be talking about Mischief Theatre, who are the brilliant theatre company behind The Play That Goes Wrong and various spin-offs of that. They've got a new comedy opening in the West End and I want to talk about their amazing success story because I think it's really fascinating.

3:40Yeah, it's a really overlooked British success story. We are also going to talk about Universal, our opening a theme park in Britain. We're going to talk about theme parks, we're going to talk about Universal. Essentially, we're talking around whether that sounds like a good idea or not. Absolutely. Shall we start with Saturday Night Live? Well, let's, because in partnership with NBC, Sky is going to make their own version of it. And the big sort of headline of it in a way is that it's going to be executive produced by Lorne Michaels, who, of course, is the presiding creative genius, unless you don't like SNL, behind Saturday Night Live, who's overseen it for sort of 50 years, bar a kind of brief hiatus.

4:17There have been many, many, many attempts, I think we have to say, to get shows like this. and shows like those big late night successes in America. Bear in mind, this goes on 11.30 or whatever it is on a Saturday night. One of the interesting things about America is that they watch TV a load much later at night. Really, really late. Than the UK does, which is why, I don't know, things like The Daily Show, all the late night talk shows, all of those are a really big thing. Saturday night live at... It's crazy. Honestly, I get to the end of Interior Design Masters at 9pm and we're like, better hit the hay.

4:51Imagine you have to stay up for another three and a half hours. Yeah, but it's just a fact of their kind of TV existence is that they do stay up later in, which is why these shows have... All different types of these kind of late-night shows, late-night comedy shows, have been iconic and chat shows and successful. And one of the reasons why they haven't worked in the past over here, but there have been so many attempts. Yeah, Friday Night Live, Channel 4's have done it. Yeah, everyone tries to do these sort of... Well, I was going to go through the various different attempts. We've had, well, there was Saturday Live, Friday Night Live back in the 80s.

5:24Then the 11 o 'clock show, Tonightly, the late edition with Marcus Briggs, recommended daily amount, MASH report, 10 o 'clock live. 10 o 'clock live, that was one of mine. But then, funnily enough, things like Last Week Tonight, which is John Oliver's show. I mean, he's been, I think he has acknowledged and been one of the first people to acknowledge that it was quite based on, although he came up via The Daily Show, it was quite based on something much older. that was the week that was, which was, you know, David Frost before he became Star Humper. What should I say? Can we say? Before he became Lord Frost Brexit Minister.

5:59That's a different David Frost. That's a different David Frost. So there have been so many attempts over the years. All of which have failed. Yeah. Why have they failed, do you think? A number of reasons. And certainly when this was announced, the glee with which almost every single commentator, almost every single person in the industry said, well this isn't going to work this is going to be terrible the actual saturday night live it's itself is terrible you actually watch the whole episode you know it's so awful and you know i kind of get it well listen why has saturday night live in america worked would be the question and people seem to think that saturday night live is about 5 000 different things saturday night will fill whatever vacuum it is you think is missing on television so people go oh it's a satire show it's this that or the other saturday night live is a sketch show yes all it is it is a sketch show and they are allowed to show sketches on television because they have a big name guest hosting it's clever they have a music act people always switch off in the music acts but law michael says it gives us relevance though you know without it we lose the context of what this show is so even though you know nbc i'll tell you the ratings drop off a cliff every time you know the first note of music is played he will always have it because he said it just it makes people feel like this show belongs to them.

7:14But it is a sketch show. That's all it is. And it's a sketch show that breaks new performers, introduces new performers and new writers. And once a week, you have these sketches. Now, in America, the money they spend is immense. I mean, it's immense. I was talking to someone who's working with Lorne Michaels, and he said on a Wednesday they built this set. They said it's the single most expensive set they'd ever built on Saturday Night Live. I mean, it's proper, you know, like a whole series of a British quiz show type set. Rehearsal on Friday, they scrap the sketch, they scrap the set. And they can do that.

7:51They can pay writers a lot. They can pay performers a lot. And so it is just a very, very, very high end sketch show with very big guests on it. And it had probably reached roughly the end of its road just at the time when television became all about viral moments and became about, have you got something for us that's two minutes long and clippable? And Saturday Night Live go, yeah. Something like the last season, it's something like 3.1 billion views of the clips, which is crazy because, yeah, it's made for that. Yeah, so that's what it is. And if you're hearing about Saturday Night Live and go, yeah, but I've watched it and this got boring, but you think, yeah, I mean, welcome to television.

8:33But what it is, it's been this machine for years and years and years producing stars, producing big spin-offs, and now it is essentially a clip machine as well, is the thing. And every week it gets in the press because they've got big guests on it and big music guests. So it's noisy and it provides an awful lot of viral moments. Now, in the UK, we do not have the money to make a show like that. So in America, on Tuesday in the States, all the writers, and there's a lot of them going and pitched a lawn, and the other producers. Lorne and the producers go off into a little room, decide the sketches they want for that week, loads more than are going to be shown, go back to those writers.

9:14Those writers then become a producer for a week on that sketch. And they're given incredible resources just to make it. And we all know, and they famously kind of sleep in the office and you never really leave. And it's just this whole, it's all-consuming thing. Also, can I just say one other thing, which is that they have that is different to us, is that they have this massive tradition of improvised comedy, which is where these, you know, we say they break news, but these people have all done improv in places like Second City, which started in Chicago, but there's also New York, Groundlings, all these kind of nationwide improv troupes.

9:48They have a huge tradition. And actually, having worked with American actors on sitcoms, they've all done improv. They've all done it. Still sometimes do improv nights in LA. They still also, so they're so good at like all the ad-libbing and stuff like that because that's where they come from. And we don't, you know, as you say, people go into, as we've talked about how many times people go into stand-up. So the reason, so it hasn't really worked over here, despite the fact we're a very funny country and there's lots of talent behind the camera and in front of the camera is there's not quite enough money.

10:16We don't work in the way that they do. There's very few rooms that you would be working the hours they do on Saturday Night Live. Well, that's the thing though, but they pay them. And as you say, we don't have the improv. We don't have that, but that's another part of this is the sort of UK commissioning process where you're always, you know, there'll be a long off season. Are you going to get another season? You're kind of, okay, at some point, obviously, they're going to cancel SNL in the States and that's at some point going to happen. But in general, you know you're coming back. Your season runs from October till May, which is really, really long.

10:47And they kind of always have a couple of repeats within that. But you know you're doing 22 episodes. It's not like, oh, we're going to do 10 episodes and see how it goes or even eight episodes and see how it goes. This is everyone on that shows 100 % main job and okay sometimes when you're really successful in the SNL cast in order to like keep you sweet and keep you coming back Lorne might let you do a comedy film in the off season okay and you might be allowed to do that but in general whereas all our comics at the moment you know they've got you can see why they do it they've got this panel show they've got that this is this you know it's a sort of comedian's equivalent of a fragrance line you know I need to be diversified I need to have one panel show I need to like do Taskmaster or I need to, you know, whatever it all is.

11:29And you kind of put together a year for yourself. Yeah, a career in that way. And I'll do some touring. You know, and it's a sort of tessellation in lots of ways. Whereas this is like that. This is a huge focus. It's the apex in lots of ways of their comic culture. There'll be lots of disagreement on that. But you know what I mean. Nonetheless, it is a prestige job to have. And as is writing on it. But it is your full commitment. Yeah. And all of these points have been made at volume this week by people saying, what on earth is Sky doing? This is so stupid. And, you know, it's not going to work in Britain.

12:03We've tried it so many times. It's not going to, you know, oh, it's going to be hosted by Rob and Romesh, isn't it? And all of this stuff. And can I just want to... I love Rob and Romesh. Oh, me too. I mean, I don't need to see him hosting Saturday Night Live. I do hate SNL, but we'll come to that. Yeah. You know what? It sounds like it. But it sounds like the whole of British culture hates SNL as well. A lot of American culture does too. I will say this about what's happening. I would say to every single writer, every single TV writer, every single person in the industry, you know what? Why don't we just get behind this one?

12:34Because there's not much money left in telly. And the money that is, is going into drama and it's going into things like this. Sky are spending a lot of money on this, a lot of money. And they're casting new people. They're casting new talent, new comic talent. If you talk to the people who've been approached, it's not the same old faces. It's not as a review of The Guardian of Last One Laughing that described the cast as members of the Cats Does Countdown cinematic universe. And by the way, that's an amazing group of people to get for your show. And that was a huge hit for Alison. Oh, you know, I loved it.

13:08But Sky are not going to do that. Sky are going to go for newcomers. They're going to go for new writers. And if I can just give a modest proposal as to why this might work. A modest proposal. By the way, nothing works. That's the first thing we know in TV. But we try anyway. So nothing works, but you've got to do something. Now on this, firstly, it is Lorne's idea. So Lorne is behind it. Lorne is coming across. That immediately makes some noise. Lorne also, for whatever you might think about him, is an amazing talent scout. I was talking to a big comic who had done an interview with Lorne. and he said look if you if you and i would have sit in a room and pete davidson was to come in and do an audition for us we'd be like huh he said but he comes in and lawn sees him and goes oh this is our guy right he's just very very good at finding people who other people won't find and he's going to be part of the process of finding the talent for this show so that i think is interesting the fact that they're skipping a generation and going for younger comics and younger comic voices.

14:11This is a group of people, this is a generation, who are unbelievably good at giving you one minute, two minute, three minute pieces of content. Yeah, because we've seen them, and we see them on all the various platforms. All the time. And I would say to anybody in the industry, at the moment, these people are filming that at home. All they are is funny, which is all you really, really need to be. But as an industry, here is an opportunity. Lorne Michaels is coming over, and Sky are putting a lot of money behind it that could be spent elsewhere. There's plenty of people at Sky who think they shouldn't be spending money on comedy, should be spent elsewhere.

14:45It's going on comedy. And every single one of these people that are currently making one minute, two minute videos at home, they're going to be in a room with writers, new young writers. They're going to be filmed by camera operators. They're going to be in one of our studios. They're going to be using our edit suites. You know, this is a big thing for the comedy community. It's a big thing for the television community. This is a really, really big commission. And it's a commission because it's Lorne and because it's Saturday Night Live. If you or I or anybody at home, any producer, were to say, right, I'm going to pitch 12 new young comics and 12 new young writers.

15:19OK, it doesn't get off the ground for obvious reasons. You know, especially. No, it's 12 new young comics, 12 new young writers, and it costs an absolute fortune. OK, that would be the dream for all of us. That's what every comedy producer wants to do. Let me go out and find that talent. Give me an absolute load of money. Make a load of noise. Spend a lot of marketing money on it. That's what they would love to do. You can't do that. That is what is happening here. That is, if you really, really, if you don't look at the car and the colour of the car, if you look underneath the bonnet, that is what is happening.

15:51New young talent, new writers, a load of money being thrown at it and Lorne's name on the top of it. The provisor, of course, is nothing ever works. Of course, it won't work. But it just might. And I'll tell you what, either way, I will love to read the oral history of it. Because although I say I hate SNL, I don't know why. I love reading about it. Yeah, it's amazing. I actually loved that, which I knew no one else would like, or not enough people would like, the Saturday Night, the Jason Reitman film that just came out recently. I loved it. I knew I would. But there's a brilliant book called Live from New York.

16:24If you ever want to read a great book about SNL, even if you hate it, it's so good by James Andrew Miller. And it's an oral history of Saturday Night Live. and he basically spoke to everyone apart from, rest the souls, the ones who are no longer with us. And even then he had a go. Well, even then I think he was able to sort of extract things from old interviews, but it's so, I mean, it's so involving. I absolutely loved it. Curtis Sittenfeld, who is an author, I absolutely love. I remember when I was like, oh my God, she's doing a new book and it's called Romantic Comedy. Amazing. And it's like, what?

16:53It's set behind the scenes on, basically on SNL. It's called something else, but it's basically SNL. Having said that, of course I loved it. But also, You know, obviously 30 Rock, which is, I mean, they had so many shows. That was that freak season where NBC, they have Saturday Night Live, which is obviously coming back. They have 30 Rock, which is a new comedy at the time, which was one of the great TV comedies and I absolutely love, which is about basically... Probably maybe the best ever. It's so good, which is basically about SNL. And then they also have my guilty favourite hate watch, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, which is also basically about SNL.

17:26So it is their huge thing in lots and lots of ways. I often feel, you know, satire isn't a format and I do sometimes feel it's a bit like their off-brand version of football or whatever. You know, like, hi, we've also got a version of football. The rest of the world's got a version of football, which we like much more. And, you know, why are you calling baseball the World Series? Because, you know, it's sort of that thing. But I totally agree with you that all those young people you see all the time just doing absolutely lo-fi but brilliantly, genuinely really funny, with small pieces of things.

17:55Why not? Why not try it? And it's great. Skipping a generation is absolutely crucial because nobody's interested in it. I mean, those people can come along and play whoever, play Rachel Reeves. I don't even know what I'm saying. This is the problem with the show. Listen, people kind of, there's a lot of the people talking about it are under the impression it is a satirical show. And it's, I mean, it sort of is, you know, they'll do cold opens about Donald Trump. But it's funniest when it's just sketches about people. Yeah, it's much better when it, yeah. and funny things happening. And there's got to be a room for that.

18:28I know, you know, Channel 4 are bringing back Mitchell and Webb and sketch comedy should be on its way back is the truth. We know that it's expensive, but there are now different ways of kind of monetising things. But sketch comedy is made for our times because... Of the virality. This show, which everyone will slag off after three minutes, everybody will slag it off because it's sort of, and it's not a jealousy, but it's everyone. everyone likes to think I wish they would give me the reins of a show like this I'd show them what to do and you wouldn't Oh my god I would hate the reins of a show like this They're hard to make but after three minutes everyone will sag it off all you've got to do on the show James Longman I was about to say who's James Longman who's going to be the showrunner James Longman and Susie Applin are going to be the showrunners and will be very very good at it see they're from a generation who knows how to make television and you know they're going to bring on a generation who has not made television which I think is a good combination and James Longman is an interesting one.

19:23He's worked on loads of big British shows but then went over to the States to work on James Corden's The Late Show and sort of is one of those very few people who can do American ambition and British sensibility which is very, very hard to do and it's going to be absolutely key to this Saturday Night Live as well. But, you know, we'd go over there, writers love him, you know, performers love him. So you sort of couldn't pick a better person. Yeah, but things like carpool karaoke talk about something that just, like, one viral thing can define a show, not that that was all that that show was about.

19:53But that particular thing where every single week that went viral. Exactly. But if you're James or Susie, the one thing they know, they've got an hour each week which is a shop window for comedy. There will be so much noise around that show and so much static around that show of people telling them it's going to fail or people saying, why have you chosen that person? Why have you done that? This sketch was terrible. They just have to sit there and think, I've got an hour each week to showcase really, really interesting people to give some money to some really, really interesting people. And do you know what?

20:22In the perfect format for our times. In the perfect format for our times. If one thing on that show goes viral, it's a hit. If there's one thing that suddenly is getting millions upon millions upon millions of views, if there's one character who really comes off, if there's one sketch that kind of captures the times, that's the biggest deal. And it's not going to be, oh, look, they've got someone playing Keir Starmer doing a joke about it. I mean, forget all that. That's sort of meaningless. What it is is a new generation of young talent. this might be the final opportunity I won't be surprised if it is it might be the final opportunity for television, traditional television to dip its hand into its pocket and give a huge amount of money to the next generation of comic talent I think it might be the last time that happens and it happens because of A Man in His 80s, Lorne Michaels and a show which people widely deride Saturday Night Live but I think that it is beholden on anyone who works in the industry certainly anyone who works in the comedy industry which has been decimated to kind of go, do you know what?

21:22Maybe, we'll just why not give them a series? It's a little bit like what we were saying last week when we were talking about CinemaCon and saying that actually people used to watch their rivals to fail but now you see the studios actually wanting their rivals to have hits we should want people to have hits in comedy Last One Laughing has been a huge hit for Amazon that's great because that's bringing Amazon money into the British comedy infrastructure and entertainment infrastructure. If Sky were to have a hit with Saturday Night Live or something that counts as a hit for them, their return on investment really is marketing, and this could work very well as marketing.

21:57If suddenly you've got Sky money and Amazon money comfortable being in British comedy and comfortable being in British comedy television, then that is good news for every single editor, every single production assistant, every single camera operator, every single sound person. I mean, it's just good news. Let that rising tide lift all boats, Richard. Let that rising tide lift all boats. And to amuse all boats as well. And, you know, I've talked to people on all sides of it, and everyone knows. Everyone knows what they're doing. Everyone knows that it's a swing. Everyone absolutely gets it. I think the fact that the sky is quite useful because you won't have the big overnights, the big, oh, my God, it did this, it did that.

22:37It can actually sort of allow itself to progress a little bit. but if they can get two or three stars out of the first series two or three sketches that really really really work That's interesting do you just think people are helped by not being in that overnight kind of treadmill of people just being able to look straight away and obviously Amazon where we have no idea Yeah Well we talked last week about Black Mirror and one of the key things about Annabelle and Charlie going to Netflix is they understood that there weren't overnight ratings and so actually they could build something It's such a tyranny Yeah but it is a tyranny and it's slightly disappeared now because of the way that TV works.

23:11But for years, it's absolutely the tyranny. For Sky, Sky's TV really and Sky's spend is marketing spend. Sky want you to subscribe to things. That's their business. And if you can make a noise on that channel, then that's good enough for Sky. And I don't mean that in a cynical way at all. That's just their business. And as a producer, great. If you've got marketing money to give me, I will gladly take it. But yeah, it puts much less pressure. Whereas on the PSBs, they've got to basically make the top tens. All the time, you're trying to make the top ten. If you look at A League of Their Own, if you actually look at the viewing numbers for A League of Their Own, you wouldn't even...

23:51It's not nothing, but it doesn't compare to terrestrial comedy. However, it's got big names on it. Every time it's on, you'll sort of watch a few minutes. It has viral moments. It's really well made. And that for Sky is what they want. They want something that says there is quality stuff on Sky. There's people you know on Sky doing interesting, funny things. So it's an entirely different metric. And the success or failure of SNL on Sky will be entirely a different matter than the success or failure of it on ITV or Channel 4 or the BBC. I've never wanted anything to succeed more now. Oh, that's good.

24:22I've never wanted anything to. That's good. Let's do this. And of course, because it's Sky and because it's Lorne, you know, you can have all this new talent because you'll have huge stars in the middle of it hosting it. You'll have big music acts. You'll have big names from Hollywood or from wherever it is. So you will have that noisiness. And the cameos in the sketches. The cameos in the sketches. But the engine room is new talent doing new things to a new audience with money they've never seen before. Please capture everything for the oral history and potentially even a backstage documentary.

24:51You don't have to shoot. You just retain the footage because I will want to read about it at some point. Shall we go to a break and then talk about another success story for British comedy and British theatre? We'll talk about mischief theatre. and we'll also talk about Universal Studios Bedfordshire. Yes, please. That's not what they're going to brand it as, I don't think. It's not like, you know, the Universal tour in Hollywood. Universal Studios Bedfordshire.