The news that a British version of Saturday Night Live was in the offing raised an enormous gestalt groan throughout the land. A US show that was last a reasonable proposition in about 1996, reimagined for the UK? Why stop with SNL – there’s also Home Improvement, Murder She Wrote or Dr Quinn Medicine Woman. The besetting sin of firing Norm Macdonald is a stain from which the American SNL has never truly recovered. This offshoot had the air of a calamity in the making.

The biggest surprise was that SNL UK was quite an upbeat, silly, jolly affair

The biggest surprise was that SNL UK was quite an upbeat, silly, jolly affair

And the trailer released last week felt like the death of hope. I didn’t think it was possible to make Tina Fey (SNL veteran and host of the first show) unfunny, but they managed it. Worse, the British cast came across as insufferable, a sort of vacuum sapping canker, a convocation of talentless talent vampires.

The trailer took place on the climbing frames and scaffolding beloved of 1970s children’s favourite  Why Don’t You? (they should rename this Why Did You?, I thought.) Though in its content, it was more reminiscent of another TV treat of the same vintage, the BBC’s funky Christian kids show The Sunday Gang, all dungarees and painfully strained conviviality.

Assembling totally unfamiliar faces for 75 minutes of live comedy........

© The Spectator