SNL UK After Party 4/25/26 - S1 E5 “Shut Up, Dave Grohl!”

Host: Nicola Coughlin

Musical Guest: Foo Fighters

In a metaphor drawn from one of this week's sketches, when a plane is crashing, you want someone who knows what they're doing to land the thing. Is that person Jimmy Fallon? Or is heavy reliance on an American cameo an omen important of bad things to come?

But can Nicola Coughlin, with help from Fallon and Foo Fighters, help avoid the disappointing ratings SNL UK is facing? Or is this thing just going down? Let's find out in this week's SNL UK After Party.

Cold Open

What Donald Trump is to the American SNL's cold open, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is to SNL UK. Once again we have a Starmer (George Fouracres) led intro. This time, Starmer appears on Who Wants to remain a Millionaire (hosted by Al Nash). In this version of the game show, Starmer is asked a single question, which is: “Is it ever a good idea to give Peter Mandelson a job?”

Mandelson is a long-time British politician who served as British ambassador to America and was let go by Prime Minister Starmer after ties to Jeffrey Epstein were made public.

The possible answers to the question include:

- No

- Absolutely not

- Never in a million years

- Yes

Starmer has to use all three lifelines, including eliminating half the answers, calling a friend, and polling the audience. When he calls a friend, he of course calls Peter Mandelson (Larry Dean), who is wearing a JE bathrobe and is lit in devilish light. At the end, Starmer is allowed to take a second 50-50 lifeline, which eliminates all answers except for "Never in a Million Years." Starmer, of course, decides to put an answer back on the board and choose "Yes."

Admitting I do not know too much about British politics or the major players in the game, this felt like an odd sketch. First, the punch line was obvious from the opening moments, and secondly, I'm not sure why this sketch was even here at this point in time. Maybe Mandelson still remains a huge topic of conversation. But even taking that into account, this sketch did not really hit the mark.

Monologue

Host Nicola Coughlin returns to the SNL UK stage after a set of cameos in the opening episode of the show. The star of Derry Girls and Bridgerton is charming, charismatic. She said she wanted to recreate the 1970s SNL magic. "To prepare," she said, "I have consumed a staggering amount of cocaine."

She is then joined on stage - somewhat inexplicably - by Jimmy Fallon. Fallon tells her that the host can do anything they want to and proceeds to take her on a backstage trip, which is a staple in the American version here. The background backstage characters take on a decidedly more British flavor than the Americans. The American version does. For example, instead of Lincoln and a llama, you get two beef eaters and someone who I believe is Lord Nelson. There's also someone holding a "don't do drugs" sign in the background. As far as these things go, it was a fun enough opening monologue, though it was discouraging to see Jimmy Fallon trotted out on the British version.

The Magic Faraway Tree

In this pre-taped piece, Coughlin is pitching a song for the closing title of a fantasy movie she has just finished called The Magic Faraway Tree. In it, she does a spicy rap with an inordinate focus on catering. When the movie executives ask if she's wanting to do this like Will Smith, she says no, it's more like Natalie Portman, which is a fun nod to a similar rap piece Portman did several seasons ago on the original SNL. When she returns to her rap, Jimmy Fallon joins in as Keith, the on-set caterer, and there's just more song. This one, if you like this kind of thing, you probably will be okay with this, but the song itself was not that funny. Furthermore, the shock value of this sort of thing is long since dead (possibly having passed away with Portman’s first rap in 2006 (which she followed up with in 2018).

Also, this raises a serious question: Are the Brits as bamboozled by Jimmy Fallon as America seems to be?

Paula From Accounts: What a Life Magazine

In order to save a failing anecdote-based British magazine, the staff of What A Life turns makes another trip to the office well to talk to Paula in accounts (Coughlin). Paula has all kinds of weird stories, such as claiming she had a sexual relationship with the next-door neighbor's ghost and claiming that Ross Kemp ran over her four times just that morning and signed her in elbow blood. Who is Ross Kemp, you may ask? I had to look him up. He's a British actor, probably best known for his appearance in the show EastEnders.

Coughlin, seemingly channeling a Melissa McCarthy character, proceeds to reveal multiple ridiculous stories and ultimately gives birth to triplets before a UFO comes to get her.

This was kind of a mess.

Big Horrid Clump

In this pre-taped sketch, a woman (Emma Sidi) tries to convince a friend of the value of her ship-shaped bag insert to keep a purse more organized. It's kind of funny because the organizer really is just a smaller purse to go inside a big one. However, another woman (Annabel Marlow) appears and violently pushes Sidi aside to present her product, the Big Horrid Clump. This is exactly what it sounds like. It's just a non-organized mass of stuff one puts in one's purse or bag. Towards the end of the sketch, the Clump turns into a monster and attacks everyone as they scream, "This is how the plague begins." Points for bizarre creativity here. It may not be hilarious, but it is certainly original.

QVC

Coughlin and Ayoade Bamgboye cohost a QVC segment with Sidi selling rings. The joke in the sketch is that Sidi has one finger that is comically large. That is really it. It's very, very long and looks weird. When asked about it, she just simply states that she has a giant finger. However, she then pulls out her other hand, which is horrifying and scary. This freaks everyone out, including Sidi, who did not know that the other hand had turned into this mess. She then collapses and then comes back to life and attempts to strangle the hosts. And that's pretty much the sketch. The physical comedy of the super long finger gets a few laughs, but this sketch really had no idea where to go. Still, one can't deny that the visuals were silly and funny.

Weekend Update

Starmer and Mandelson get top billing in this week's news. There's also a lot of discussion of a condom crisis due to blockades at the Strait of Hormuz.

There are some well-done silly jokes, such as King Charles stating that his mother would have been troubled by much in the modern world, to which Patty Young stated, "Because in the modern world she's dead." There's also a notation that Russell Brand is running for London Mayor, "and the London Mayor is running away."

The first guest at the desk is a woman who can't be ignored (Sidi). She was brought on in response to reports that women are routinely not paid attention to by the National Health Service. Sidi does a great job as a loud show busy singer who notes that the secret to keeping attention is "big hats and loud farts."

Our next guest is a man running the London Marathon, which proves to be a man literally running past the desk and grabbing a cup of water. This is funny in its refreshing shortness.

Finally Anya Magliano and Young repeat their hand-in-hand segment, but this time it's hand-in-hand-in-hand because Jimmy Fallon joins them. The three seek to repair American/British relations. Fallon states that "we took your Harry Styles and gave you Benson Boone in ads that quote, 'ours flips,' close quote. The hosts acknowledge that merging cultures between our two nations have gone badly in the past by citing Lily Allen's marriage. Finally, they declare that April 25 should henceforth be co-dependence day between our two countries while insulting malaria because apparently April 25th is World Malaria Day.

Landing a Plane

Coughlin appears as a flight attendant addressing passengers to advise them that the pilots have been rendered unconscious and that someone needs to help land the plane. She asks if anyone has a license. No one raises their hand. When she asks who thinks they can land a plane, all the male passengers raise theirs. The reason is that they think they are qualified to land a plane, ranging from having access to the Virgin Atlantic Lounge to having recently seen Top Gun: Maverick.

Ultimately, one of the passengers "wins" when he reveals that he knocked out the pilots so he could land the plane to prove to his wife that he can handle difficult situations. Of course, once given the opportunity to actually try to land the plane, he's unable to do so, and the jet crashes in a field.

This one had a solid core idea, but none of us needed radar (or some other plane thing) to know how this one would end up.

Cabin

Marlow and Jack Shep are immediately seen in a cabin, clutching weapons and covered in blood. It appears that they were members of a bachelorette (or "hen-do") party that went awry. Coughlin shows up as a tardy attendee who tries to keep the focus on herself while seemingly not acknowledging the carnage around her. She keeps arguing why her tardiness is acceptable, finally causing the killer to rise from the ground, claiming he was about to kill them all, but he's just getting so tired of hearing her excuses. At which point, another murderer comes to the door (Dean) who is disappointed that all the killing has occurred, and is then chastised for being late as well. Then it ends.

This sketch really felt half baked from the get-go, and had very little to work with.

45 seconds with Fouracres

Fouracres sings a song called “Fruit and Veg”, which is a lovely ditty about various fruits and vegetables interspersed with the lyric “Epstein didn’t kill himself.”

This super-short format thing is smart as it prevents anything that may not be working (which is the case here, alas) from dragging out. Fouracres has obvious talent, but this one just didn’t work. Perhaps it was because this was already a fairly Epstein adjacent show.

The Goodbye Wave

Best Sketch: This one is tough because there were no real standouts this week. If forced to pick a best sketch - which I realize I am not…no one even wants me to do any of these reviews, much less force me to- I’ll go with the QVC sketch. It was good old fashioned stupid fun.

Worst Sketch: Ah, now here we have a wide selection to choose from! I think ultimately I’ll have to go with the tardy murderer in the cabin sketch as I just didn’t get any laughs out of it.

Random Notes:

- I really do like how they go straight from sketches to introducing the musical guest. In the first intro, I could swear Coughlin was trying to introduce Foo Fighters in the same weird cadence as Christopher Walken did on the American show.

- For Foo Fighters’ second song, Dave Grohl went straight from a sketch and onto the music stage to perform. This was really quite cool.

- I feel like the show hasn’t decided how to showcase Celeste Dring so far.

Overall, I have been a fan of this British import so far, but this week’s offering was not great coming off the heels of episode 4 which also was, at best, mixed. Coughlin is a good host, but the material this week just didn’t seem strong. I remain hopeful that the show will succeed, and SNL has always been notoriously uneven. That’s the nature of the live beast, after all.

I don’t want to think the sun is setting on this nascent empire just yet, and I hope the next episode will put the program on an upswing.

Grade: D+

As always, we grade SNL episodes in comparison to other SNL episodes. Not TV in general. If you want to support our content, consider subscribing on Substack