Saturday Night Live UK kicked off its first promo for this weekend’s Jack Whitehall-hosted episode with a ripped-from-the-headlines joke involving the artist formerly known as Kanye West.
The just-released clip opens on Whitehall inspecting the bulletin board denoting past and future host/musical guest pairings when spots and removes Ye’s name from the the April 25 episode.
The moment plays as a knowing gag given the recent uproar within the UK over the revelation that the controversial rapper had been booked to headline a major London-based hip-hop festival this summer. After news of his booking broke, several of the festival’s sponsors dropped out over Ye’s past antisemitic remarks, and earlier Tuesday, the British government barred him from entering the United Kingdom and the concert was cancelled.
No further mention is made of the cancelled Ye in the promo; instead, it transitions to a sketch involving Jack Whitehall and SNL UK cast member Jack Shep both holding cue cards for one another, each forcing the other to pay them compliments.
Watch the full promo at the top of this post.
Whitehall is hosting SNL UK‘s fourth straight episode this Saturday (10 p.m. GMT on Sky One), with musical guest Jorja Smith. The SNL offshoot will then take a one-week break, before wrapping its freshman run with another four episodes in a row beginning April 25—and presumably not hosted by Kanye.
