Saturday Night Live has found a showrunner for its jaunt across the pond.
James Longman will serve as executive producer of SNL UK. The news was shared by Phil Edgar-Jones, executive director of unscripted programming at Sky, at the Edinburgh TV Festival’s Sky Spotlight event.
Longman served as an executive producer on The Late Late Show with James Corden, working his way up from supervising producer in its second season. He also worked on the show’s Carpool Karaoke off-shoot specials. Most recently, he executive produced Jamie Foxx’s Netflix standup special What Had Happened Was… Last year, Longman and producer Ollie Brack signed a partnership deal with BBC Studios for the production company they co-founded, Jolly Octopus Media.
Edgar-Jones shared his hopes for the upcoming adaptation, telling festival goers that the process “is exciting” but “a little but scary as well.” The goal, said Edgar-Jones, is to capture the “chaos” and “noise” of the show for UK audiences.
To achieve that goal, the show is planning to assemble a writers room with approximately 10-15 writers—though Edgar-Jones implied the room could evolve, calling it “quite fluid,” Broadcast reports. He also revealed that the SNL UK team has been scouting the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and talent showcases in London in search of cast members for the show.
The Sky exec noted that the UK adaptation must seek to carve out its own identity where possible.
“It’s something we talk about a lot. Obviously the American team have come over, to give structural advice, but they’re very mindful this has to be a very British thing,” said Edgar-Jones. “So the team making it are all great people with British comedy chops.”
That team is also hoping to recreate the intimate feeling of the American SNL. The UK show will be broadcast from a BBC Studioworks studio in West London.
Saturday Night Live UK will premiere in 2026 on Sky Max and streaming service Now.
