As Saturday Night Live UK continues to take shape, LateNighter has learned the show has locked in a home: BBC Studios’ TC1, the flagship studio at London’s Television Centre.
It’s an apt choice for the first English-language adaptation of a show so closely associated with its longtime home in New York.
Like Studio 8H at NBC’s Rockefeller Center headquarters, TC1 is steeped in television history.
Opened in 1964, TC1 was once billed as the largest television studio in Europe. Over the decades, its vast floor space and technical infrastructure made it the BBC’s go-to stage for programming that needed both scale and visibility—from prestige serials like I, Claudius to election-night broadcasts, to popular entertainment series like Later… With Jools Holland and The Graham Norton Show. (Fawlty Towers is even said to have shot a few of its episodes on the iconic stage.)
After multiple refurbishments, most recently in 2017, it remains one of the best-equipped television studios in the country, with seating for hundreds and a production infrastructure designed for live and near-live broadcasting, making it a natural fit for a weekly live comedy institution looking to establish its British identity.
First announced last April, SNL UK marks the first international adaptation of Saturday Night Live to be developed with the direct involvement of creator and executive producer Lorne Michaels.
The show is set to premiere Saturday, March 21, airing on Sky Max and streaming on NOW. An exact time slot has yet to be announced, and no plans have been revealed for a possible U.S. broadcast or streaming release.
Get to know the 11 cast members announced for SNL UK, including their comedy heroes.
