How British Comedy is Rallying Thanks to ‘SNL U.K.,’ ‘Mock the Week’

In particular, “SNL U.K.” has injected some pizzazz into British TV comedy since its March debut, partly thanks to its cast of mostly fresh faces. Three comedians Variety spoke to for this piece, two of whom auditioned for the show, all said they’d expected “SNL U.K.” to feature the “usual suspects,” meaning British panel show regulars such as Romesh Ranganathan, Rob Beckett and Katherine Ryan. “I think it’s really exciting and brave of them to take those risks and cast new people because that should be what that show is for,” said one of the two who auditioned, agreeing to speak on condition of anonymity.

The remuneration for “SNL U.K.” is decent – Variety understands the cast were initially offered around £40,000 to £50,000 ($54,000 to $67,000) each for Season 1 – but it’s a full-time commitment. “It’s so intensive, they own you for 12 weeks,” said the comedian who auditioned. “I would make more on my tour spanning the same length of time.”

The eleven cast members (upped to twelve for Season 2) represent just a fraction of the show’s total staffing costs, with around 300 people working each episode, including 20 writers, dozens of costume designers and make-up artists, an in-house band and even a team dedicated to writing and holding cue cards. (“The cue card team are amazing,” Liz Clare, the director, recently said during a panel at the Edinburgh TV Festival. “It’s a dark art.”) As Variety previously reported, the show’s budget is around £2 million per episode, roughly four times the cost of other flagship comedy shows, representing a huge investment for Sky. (Two sources tell Variety that long-running sports panel show “A League of Their Own” was cut in part to fund “SNL U.K.” Sky declined to comment.)

By contrast, “Mock the Week,” which also aired eight episodes (plus an end-of-season special) this past spring, saw a peak of 337,000 viewers for episode 5 while its lowest-watched episode was episode 3, with 223,000 viewers. It’s season finale, airing the day after “SNL U.K.” launched, scored an average of 328,000. Meanwhile “The Graham Norton Show” (although not strictly comedy, it’s stars’ number one choice when they’re in town to promote a project) consistently gets over a million views each week in its Friday night slot on BBC One. Last season the opening episode got 1,300,660 and the last episode got 1,155,270.

“They don’t care about viewing numbers,” one seasoned talent agent, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Variety of Sky’s mindset. “It’s about ‘Do you know it’s on?’ and ‘Do you know it’s on Sky?’ and ‘Will it be something that gets people to subscribe?’”

It helps that any financial outlay on “SNL U.K.” effectively stays in-house given the show is licensed and produced by fellow Comcast stablemates including NBCUniversal and Universal Television Alternative Studio U.K. (Interestingly a number of the show’s guest hosts have also been part of the Universal family, including “SNL” alum Tina Fey, Jack Whitehall, who stars in Peacock and Sky’s “The Burbs” and Jeff Goldblum, who hosts the Season 2 premiere this week and has starred in a number of Universal Pictures blockbusters such as “Wicked” and “Jurassic World: Dominion”).

Either way, “SNL U.K.” has undeniably been a hit for Sky, garnering plenty of column inches and sprinkling some much-needed stardust on the network, especially after the departure of longtime content exec Zai Bennet in 2024.

Even the shows currently making noise, while encouraging for comedians, don’t exactly represent fresh ideas. “SNL” is a 50-year-old title, “Mock the Week” first launched in 2005 on BBC Two, where it ran for 17 years (TLC revived the show in a longer format this year after a three-year hiatus) and “L.O.L.” is based on a 10-year old Japanese format that Prime Video has replicated across a number of markets. “It’s so hard to get things to work in this very crowded space,” says one veteran comedy producer. “If you’ve got a name [why not use it?]”

“I think ‘SNL [U.K.]’ has been part of a bigger cultural wave of comedy,” says the first comedian. “Comedy is having a real boom at the moment anyway with social media… there’s more comedians touring than there ever have been in the U.K.” They suggest that if anything, the last comedy to really move the needle was “Taskmaster,” created by Alex Horne, which debuted on Channel 4 back in 2015.

Regardless of who’s responsible, there is suddenly a sense that comedy is cool again. “I think the country culturally got tired of being hopeless,” Shah says. “We want to feel optimistic about something, we want to give something a go. Cynicism is easy. We would like to give this a chance.”