‘SNL UK’ Cast Teases a Spicier Season 2 Inspired by the American Original

Published Sep 26, 2026, 12:00 PM EDT

Greer Riddell is a London-based culture journalist and critic writing on film, television, audience behaviour, and the wider media industry. She is a Writer and Social Media Coordinator at Collider and TV Editor at FILMHOUNDS.

Her recent collaborations include Netflix, Warner Bros., DC Studios, Hulu, and Disney+, producing features on titles including Saturday Night Live UK, Severance, Sitcoms, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Stranger Things. Her recent reviews include Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man, Stranger Things: Tales From ‘85’, Scrubs Season 10, and The Boroughs. Her work has also included coverage of UK film festivals and features published in Film Stories Magazine.

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Summary

• In a North American exclusive with Collider, SNL UK cast members Celeste Dring, Jack Shep, and Al Nash reveal how the show’s massive six-day production machine can make even small sketch changes difficult once hundreds of crew members are involved.
• Despite SNL UK sketches reaching millions of viewers online, the cast says social media virality does not influence how they perform, with Jack Shep focused instead on making the sketch work for the live audience in the room.
• Looking ahead, the cast wants Season 2 to take more cues from the American original by embracing bigger stunts, messier set pieces, spit-takes, and even sexier, cruder sketches.

Putting together a live Saturday Night Live UK episode is no small feat, with sketches written, rehearsed, cut, and rebuilt in the space of just six days. Cast members Celeste Dring, Jack Shep, and Al Nash spoke to Collider in a North American exclusive about the relentless SNL UK production process, whether the show's growing online success affects how they perform, and why Season 2 could benefit from taking a few cues from the American original. Think stunts, spit-takes, and sex!

Jack Shep Reveals the Size of ‘SNL UK’ Makes It Harder To Suggest Sketch Edits

With a 300-person crew and only days to get each episode on air, even small changes to a sketch can have a huge knock-on effect.

Image via. Sky

Saturday Night Live operates on an incredibly tight turnaround, which gives the show some of its funniest and most timely sketches. For the performers, though, that pace can also mean less flexibility. "The machine is so big that it can't be that nimble," SNL UK cast member Dring tells Collider. Writing a sketch in a matter of days may be manageable, but once it is locked in, making changes becomes much harder as rehearsals and dress runs reveal what is — and isn't — working. "It's not that hard to write a sketch in a few days, but actually you don't have that many drafts," she says.

Shep, who was the breakout performer of Season 1 thanks to his pitch-perfect Princess Diana take, agrees. "You have to nail the redraft and the little edits because it gets communicated everywhere." Once sketches are finalized following the Wednesday table read, even the smallest change has to make its way through multiple departments. "You have to communicate any little changes because there [are] multiple departments," Shep explains. Locking in a sketch sets off a huge chain reaction, from Wigs, Hair and Makeup to Set Design, as the production's 300-strong crew brings the show to life. "It's such a Frankenstein by that point."

That doesn't mean each episode is short on material to choose from. In fact, SNL UK lead producer James Longman shared at the Edinburgh TV Festival that the writers and cast begin each week with around 35 sketches before six are prioritized after the table read. Asked whether they could reveal any ideas that never made the cut, Dring says they're better off keeping quiet in case those sketches resurface later. And choosing what stays isn't always easy. "Some people wouldn't believe this watching the show, who don't like the show, but sometimes the table reads are really good," she jokes.

Longman also revealed that another two sketches are cut during the dress rehearsal at 6 p.m. on Saturday, just four hours before the live show. That means the host and cast can perform full sketches in costume, hair, and makeup for one audience that viewers at home will never see. "We bin off some shit, obviously, but we also do bin off quite a lot of good material," Dring says. Which, naturally, only makes us more desperate to know what ended up on the cutting-room floor.

Millions may watch the sketches online after they air, but the cast says the live audience in the room still comes first.

Image via Sky/Matt Crockett, Peacock

An episode of Saturday Night Live UK passes through several stages before viewers ever see it, from the Wednesday table read to dress rehearsal and, finally, the live show on Saturday night. But once the broadcast ends, the sketches quickly find another — and far more vocal — audience online.

Saturday Night Live UK may not be known for its live viewing figures. The Season 1 finale drew 210,000 UK viewers across seven days, with the series also airing behind a paid subscription on Sky. Online, however, individual sketches can reach a much larger audience. Season 2's first cold open, "Harry and Meghan Return Home," which featured Shep and Ayoade Bamgboye as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, reached 3.7 million YouTube views in just two days.

Dring sees a natural connection between a strong sketch and one that takes off online. "The hallmarks of a good sketch" are also the hallmarks of a viral video, she says: "things that are structured well, clear, authentic." In that sense, SNL may already be perfectly suited to today's clip-driven culture, where the audience watching individual sketches online can extend far beyond those tuning into the live broadcast.

Social media have also played a part in shaping the Saturday Night Live UK cast, with several performers, including Shep and Nash, building audiences on Instagram and TikTok before moving onto television. But knowing that millions of people around the world could eventually see a sketch doesn't change how Shep approaches it. "You're so locked in... getting your jokes across... and... making the sketch for the audience in the room that... you never really think about it in a social media capacity."

Views aren't the only instant measure of how a sketch lands, either. The comments section gives the cast and writers an immediate stream of reactions. SNL UK co-head writer Jonno Johnson previously told Collider that he has an "unhealthy" habit of checking the online response to the cold open while the show's opening titles are still rolling. Shep, despite coming from the social media world himself, tries to do the opposite — especially on the cast's only day off.

On Sundays, Shep meets friends for coffee or a pint before getting "some kind of takeaway," a routine that may sound surprisingly ordinary after such an intense week. That's precisely the point. "Socializing felt crazy, but it just really got me, like off my phone and, like, out of my house," he explains. Staying away from the online commentary gives him a chance to reset before stepping back into the SNL machine the following week.

Dring has her own Sunday ritual, heading to the sauna for a quiet afternoon. Nash, meanwhile, offers a considerably more British alternative: "I get a big fry-up, which is my kind of sauna because there's loads of kind of shirtless guys there, and I'm sweating." The less said about that, the better.

‘SNL UK’ Season 2 Needs More Sex, Stunts and Spit-Takes Like the Original ‘SNL’

The cast sees Season 2 as a chance to get bigger, stranger and more physical while borrowing a few tricks from its American counterpart.

Saturday Night Live UK Season 2 begins in a very different place from where the show started. Critics and viewers no longer ask whether the format can translate for British audiences or work at all. We've seen the answer. It works. The bigger question now is how the UK version can evolve beyond the American original.

For Dring, part of that means getting to do more stunts. "I got to do a thing where they didn't trust me to fall into a bin," Dring says, revealing that during her memorable turn as a wine-drunk woman in Episode 7 alongside Hannah Waddingham, the team used a stunt performer for the actual fall. She wasn't allowed to take the tumbles herself in "Falling Down a Hill with Helen Birch," either, despite her Countryfile-style character repeatedly rolling down the hills she was visiting. Dring admits she "got real jealousy of Ania" after watching Ania Magliano get strapped into a harness and pulled out of the set. (Dring is ready to inherit the Tom Cruise mantle.)

She's not the only one who wants Season 2 to go bigger. Nash would like to see SNL UK borrow something the American original does particularly well: Taking a simple premise and continually escalating it. "The US does really well with just really simple premises that are just amped up each time," he says, adding that he wants more comic set pieces, more "gross stuff," and, specifically, more "spit takes."

Shep has another lesson he'd happily borrow from the original SNL. "I'm actually being serious. This is going to sound like a joke," he says before explaining that he wants the UK series to embrace what the Americans "do really well... it's, like, sexy sketches... sex, crude, lewd." Considering SNL UK has so far spent plenty of time with characters like former Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Captain Birdseye wearing severed fingers around his neck, leaning into the sexier side of sketch comedy would certainly qualify as a change.

The Saturday Night Live UK cast may be looking to the US original for inspiration, but they also have plenty of British comedies they think American audiences should be watching. Nash recommends the "hoity-toity witticisms" of the 1983 sitcom Blackadder, starring Rowan Atkinson alongside Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie. Shep points viewers toward the BBC Northern Ireland comedy Funboys, which follows three emotionally stunted young men trying to survive small-town life, as well as the 1982 sitcom The Young Ones. Created by Rik Mayall, Ben Elton, and Lise Mayer, the anarchic comedy packed its episodes with slapstick, puppets, guest stars, and musical performances. Of all the recommendations, its surreal, anything-goes energy may offer the clearest clue as to where Shep hopes SNL UK can go next.

Dring, meanwhile, recommends Pulling, the 2006 comedy by Sharon Horgan about three single women navigating modern relationships. Horgan would later become known for series including Catastrophe and Bad Sisters, but Dring wants SNL fans to go back to where it started.

SNL UK has already proven it can make the format work on its own terms. Now its cast seems interested in seeing just how far they can push it — with bigger stunts, cruder jokes, stranger ideas and, apparently, considerably more spit-taking and sex.

Season 2 began on September 12 with its first six episodes, with additional shows set to follow in early 2027.