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Ncuti Gatwa Learns How SNL UK Gets Its Hosts: The "Doctor Who" Way

After "regenerating" from last week's host, Hannah Waddingham, Ncuti Gatwa learns the copyright-friendly way SNL UK secures hosts - and cast.

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Article Summary

  • SNL UK closes its season with Ncuti Gatwa as host and Holly Humberstone as musical guest before summer break.
  • A Doctor Who-inspired midweek sketch shows Gatwa learning SNL UK’s lawyer-friendly “regeneration” host process.
  • Emma Sidi and Larry Dean joke that SNL UK really has only two cast members, and the bit quickly goes sideways.
  • SNL UK’s cold open jumps to 2046, with Peter Serafinowicz as PM Nigel Farage and Starmer facing a bleak future.

It all comes down to this weekend. Of course, we're talking about the season finale of Sky and NOW's SNL UK. Though it feels good to know the 12-show second season will kick off in September, there's that whole summer break to deal with. But before that happens, we have host Ncuti Gatwa (Doctor Who, Sex Education) and musical guest Holly Humberstone on tap for the big season ender. That brings us to the SNL UK midweek sketch… that, for copyright purposes, has absolutely nothing to do with the BBC's Doctor Who in any way, shape, or form. That being said, Gatwa learns firsthand how SNL UK gets its hosts: through regeneration (in a way that makes all the lawyers happy). In fact, Emma Sidi and Larry Dean admit to Gatwa that there are only really two SNL UK cast members – though their demonstration doesn't go off quite as planned:

SNL UK Midweek Sketch: Ncuti Gatwa
Image: Sky Screencaps

SNL UK Cold Open Tackles Starmer/Elections; Serafinowicz as Farage

With only two shows to go for the first season of SNL UK and the 51st season of SNL this past weekend, we were down to two cold opens each before both shows shut down for the summer. With that in mind, how did SNL UK kick off the season's penultimate episode? With none other than actor/comedian Peter Serafinowicz (The Tick, Shaun of the Dead) Reform UK leader Nigel Farage. Set twenty years in the future, 2046 finds Serafinowicz's Farage as Prime Minister – in a world where Donald Trump is now known as "King Trump."

SNL UK Cold Open Tackles Starmer/Elections; Serafinowicz as Farage
Image: Sky Screencaps

After enjoying a frosty pint, we learned that Farange's party and Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch's (Ayoade Bamgboye) had joined forces, resulting in a lovefest that sees Badenoch serving as deputy. The duo rattle off jokes that took aim at London's mass deportations, the growing hantavirus problem, and a fun dig at "King Trump" and his constant reassurances that he's this close to a ceasefire that would open the Strait of Hormuz. From there, George Fouracres's PM Keir Starmer and Celeste Dring's Angela Rayner make the scene. It seems Starmer needed a bit of time travel to convince him he should resign after how badly Starmer's Labour Party fared in recent local elections. Otherwise, this would be the future.

And don't think that SNL UK doesn't know how to twist the knife in-house, with a newspaper during the cold open, noting that the show had been renewed for a third season, twenty years after the second season. "Wow, a big delay. Series 2 must have been rough," Dring's Rayner noted. From there, Al Nash's time-displaced Winston Churchill appears, leading the threesome to drop the soon-to-be-classic "Live from London, it's Saturday Night!" kick-off.

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Ray FlookAbout Ray Flook

Serving as Television Editor since 2018, Ray began five years earlier as a contributing writer/photographer before being brought onto the core BC team in 2017.
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