The new kid on the SNL block should be “cooler,” “smarter” and “funnier” than its 51-year old sire. That’s the extremely qualified opinion of no less than Lorne Michaels, who created Saturday Night Live and now also executive produces SNL UK.
It was almost exactly a year ago that the news broke Michaels was helping develop a UK-based version of NBC’s long-running, Emmy-winning sketch comedy series.
Now, midway through SNL UK‘s initial eight-episode run—and on the eve of Morgan Neville’s Lorne documentary hitting theaters—Michaels has expounded his vision for the offshoot and how it should compare to the original.
“My design for it,” Michaels shared Tuesday night at a Los Angeles premiere event for Lorne, “was that it would be the cooler of the two shows, and that would be the thing they beat us up with—that it’s smarter, funnier, more original.
” And it had to be that. It had to be its own thing,” he stressed. “It couldn’t be an imitation of what we do.”
James Longman, lead producer for SNL UK, told LateNighter same ahead of the series’ March 20 premiere—that the goal isn’t imitation, but translation. To that end, Longman said he was using SNL circa 1975 not as a template, but as a spirit, depositing a “young, hungry, exciting cast” onto a show that’s “a little scrappier and rough around the edges.”
Michaels at the Tuesday-night event said that he, Longman and SNL UK head writer Daran Jonno Johnson “talk all the time,” but at the end of the day, “it has to be their show.
“I’ve been doing it for 50 years, and it’s pretty well-known how I would do it…,” he said, “[but] you have to do it your ways.”
Variety captured Michaels’ statements in the video below.
Lorne Michaels shares his vision for “Saturday Night Live U.K.” pic.twitter.com/o7CDUvK14X
— Variety (@Variety) April 15, 2026
