SNL UK is coming back for season two after defying expectations
A comedic hit
When Saturday Night Live UK was first announced, the general reaction from British comedy fans could probably be summed up as a touch negative.
For years, people had tried and failed to recreate the chaos, speed and cultural bite of the original American format, and there was a strong sense that the UK simply didn’t have the appetite for it, with the humour not translating. Fast forward a few months and, somewhat surprisingly, SNL UK has ended up proving most of the doubters wrong.
Before its first season has even wrapped, Sky has officially renewed the show for a second run, expanding it from eight episodes to 12. The new season will begin airing this autumn and continue into early 2027, with episodes once again landing on Peacock in the US the following day.
It’s a major vote of confidence from Sky, especially considering the scale of the investment involved. SNL UK is reportedly the broadcaster’s most expensive unscripted show ever made, with individual episodes costing millions. That’s a huge swing for a network that’s also been aggressively ramping up original drama production and recently struck a scripted partnership with Canal+.
Still, the gamble appears to be paying off. While the overnight viewing numbers have been solid rather than spectacular, the bigger picture has been far more encouraging.
Critically, the show has landed well, social media clips have exploded online, and the guest host lineup has helped give the series a level of cultural relevance that many expected it to struggle with.
So far, hosts have included Tina Fey, Jamie Dornan, Riz Ahmed, Jack Whitehall, Nicola Coughlan, and Aimee Lou Wood, with Hannah Waddingham and Ncuti Gatwa still set to close out season one over the next two weekends.
Online, though, is where the show has really found momentum. According to recent figures, clips across YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and X have now passed 86 million views, fuelled largely by the cast’s increasingly sharp political impressions and chaotic sketch energy. Bits involving Princess Diana, Keir Starmer, Melania Trump and King Charles have all travelled well beyond the usual comedy audience, while the series has also benefited from understanding how modern sketch comedy now spreads online. Individual moments matter more than entire episodes in 2026, and SNL UK seems to have clocked that quickly.
That wider comedy world has started coming around, too. Nick Mohammed recently called the show “the best thing that’s happened to British comedy” since The Office launched in 2001, praising the confidence of finally committing fully to the format rather than trying to awkwardly reinvent it.
Most people expected SNL UK to be a curiosity at best, and a complete disaster at worst. Instead, it’s slowly becoming one of the more interesting things British television comedy has produced in years.
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