Guest Post: I am not a TV Producer, but...
How SNL UK producers might think more creatively about their ambitions
I was lucky enough to be approached by the wonderful friend of mine,
, with a post he’d written that didn’t quite fit in his slot, so to speak. So we have a special Guest Post for Two Television Things!Please do subscribe to Richard’s excellent work, after you’ve strongly agreed with what he has to say below.
Look, someone’s got to say it. Every few years someone airs the idea of doing an “SNL style TV show… but in the UK” and there’s buzz, but there’s a reason it doesn’t work. We’ve got oodles of live talent, but they are rarely given an airing; we’ve got some of the sharpest sketch writing in the world, but never a platform to push it out there; and most SNL level big celebs even want a reason to spend some time in a secret swanky pad in London they already own - and are probably a bit sick of going on Graham Norton or Ross1. But despite all this, something stops it being a success.
Generally in Britain we don’t know the show well at all. A lot of my friends, and I am surrounded by in the know comedy makers and comedy geeks alike, love this skit or that character from the show, but its very piecemeal - we’ve maybe seen highlights. But in our heads its a one night of comedy where Bill Murray and Will Ferrel did a funny thing where Christopher Walken wears a cowbell, or its that time Mike Myers first did “Oh Behave!” which went on to be a film, or Ben Stiller did that jizz in the hair thing which he always does, or its where Andy Sandburg dropped “Dick in a Box” with his high school friend JT2. We don’t have any sense that it’s taken 50 years to become an institution, where its evolved from mild anarchy to mild amusement and in which 49 and a half years of it was either unwatchable, or a strange pastiche of an anchor telling jokes about the week3. If there’s something earth shattering like Tom Hanks in a cheap pumpkin suit we might hear about it, but generally our experience of SNL is someone we know saying “I loved that one sketch, you should watch it on YouTube” and it happened a decade earlier than you thought. We don’t know jack about it is what I’m saying4.
And most crucial to that is - SNL is on really late. The clue is in the name, you damn yankees will be screeching at me. The N means ‘Night’, and genuinely many Brits will be surprised to know that the late night element is merely the tip of the iceberg - the damn show takes place mostly the next morning5. This will be a surprise because British TV doesn’t go that late. We used to have a thing where the channels turned off and wished you goodnight before going static - and even then no-one knew because they were in bed already.
What I am saying is that its not a natural fit, but I have a valid solution later. But first the problems - a late show will be a struggle, apart from NYE and charity events, we don’t stay up late to watch TV6. So there's a question of when it is broadcast, which will impact the content considerably too; as it moves from pre-watershed to post-watershed especially (no-one knows what a watershed is but before its ready DON’T mention sex or swearwords). Some shows already manage this, particularly the big talent show spectaculars like X-Factor and Strictly - if there’s any humour it’s tongue in cheek, hidden innuendos for the dads sort of thing, but then consistent throughout just in case any kids have been hypnotised by moving images and left awake to see it to the end. What I’m saying is the tone of the show either changes throughout, which could be grating and never quite commits to any extreme, or stays consistently a bit family friendly and naff. The slot for a raunchy, riotous and risky live sketch show isn’t obvious.
Furthermore, Saturday Night TV in the UK is traditionally quite family orientated. If you’re old enough to not live with your parents, you are out on a Saturday Night, or else not glued to your TV unless you are rooting for your latest heartthrob popstar-to-be with a takeaway Pizza at a mate’s house, desperate for Casualty to offer its services so you can ignore it and ask “is Charlie still in it?” (Reader, he is not). The only people watching TV together on a Saturday night are the nuclear family and they want glitzy game shows and celebs making fools of themselves for an audience vote, under the pretence of it being for Charity. But fundamentally, this is not a cool, rock and roll audience.
Which is what SNL UK would pertain to be: cool, Young, a bit rule-breaky, maybe acceptably punk. Saturday Night TV in the UK isn’t cool. It’s joyously naff. We like it naff.
Suppose though we just take a slot on Channel 4 or something - use a space on a channel that doesn’t have something which can go against a big Strictly-like show7, or after whatever iteration of The National Lottery gameshow is winning big these days. And as part of that, make a show that demands attention for those willing to give it, but provide shock/great moments for socials on Sunday morning for the hungover bunch to catch up on. Damn the audience we know and experiment to catch the attention of a new zeitgeist. Great, brave TV choices. And the pioneers choice - you want it to be event television, demanding a live energy which SNL can only exist within.
It has to warrant big advertiser revenue, and there’s a pressure to be successful in that time slot. This is premium British TV - so there isn’t much scope for failure. Which is the other issue - SNL thrives in the moment when an actor might break. It’s funny because the whole skit hangs together by a thread, and the cast tiptoe that fine line between brilliance and the abject failure. There’s a lot of grist for the mill, uninspired sketches that don’t shine - but in a later timeslot, its better than anything else on there. Here, in primetime, its competing with Ant and Dec and Cat Deeley - some of the sharpest suits on the box. You better not miss.
Be braver. Make a more intelligent choice. In fact, its a choice that was already made 30 years ago. We do have a heritage in rickety and outrageously funny sketch comedy, the viralbility of which was never plundered, and its success was repeated again and again. It made stars.
TV Producers reading this, I’m giving you this one for free: make a Saturday morning kids tv show. Have it brimming with the brightest and wildest live talents in the UK. Make it raucous and fun. Make it:
Saturday. Morning. Live.
We’re talking gunge sure, and custard pies; but have a solid cast of characters and mad hatters all over the shop with resources to write and develop some really solid stuff. Drop sketches willard nillard. Aim it for kids, but make it give a nod and a wink to adults. Fill it out with whatever tosh you want. Hell, this could be a boon for commissioners to think creatively about new IP to fill the morning schedules - new cartoons, sketch shows, prank shows, maybe even satire, or a crystal maze like escape room thing. But think about the wildly successful Horrible Histories Sketch Comedy Troupe’s (See also Paddington, Ghosts) and smash it together with the likes of Live and Kicking, SMTV and the rest. Tizwas even.
Bring a bit of edge back with PopWorld-adjacent wit as the morning drags on. We have a new generation of musical stars that don’t have the humiliating experience of being interviewed by people who don’t care who they are. Everyone seems to care too much these days and no one is willing to prick that pomposity. Let’s bring music back to TV and give kids a shared cultural experience. Its content made for phones, but can be watched first on TV. Teach a new audience what shared live viewing can do - and let them take it with them to the tweets.
But make it work for hungover students too. Let parents find themselves drawn to the magic of live comedy. Make it re-watchable on demand, repackage it into shorter, sharper experiences. And most importantly of all, let it fall apart at the seems. Live TV like this needs the chance to fail - and teams of talented writers and performers are desperate for projects to cut their teeth with, so let them experiment here!
You won’t get the chance to establish something like this on a primetime late night slot. It won’t ever be funny enough.
Despite usually needing to work somewhere else for filming.
I’m 90% sure none of these are incorrect, but there’s a chance in my folly I pretended something which is actually true.
Which we do already on Have I Got News For You and everyone is bored of that by a mile - I even wrote of its demise more than a decade ago if I can find my old blog here somewhere…
Fun fact, I started writing this thinking it went on for ours and ended at like 3am. I’m also not well informed on this…
And that’s for East Coast Audiences, West Coast even later!
Which reminds me, we DO have late night precedence, and it’s old rockstars playing boogie-woogie past midnight once a year.
The classic ‘Strictly-like’ genre.
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