SNL UK After Party 10/24/26 - S2 E6 “Come on Whisky, Stick to Killing Dads”
Host: Cynthia Erivo
Musical Guest: Blossoms
Can a wicked guest host conjure up laughs for the season 2 half-season finale of SNL UK?
Let’s head down to the pub for this week’s After Party and see.
Cold Open
British Prime Minister Andy Burnham (George Fouracres) and Liverpool Mayor Steve Rotherham (Emma Sidi) are the guests on a celebrity addition of GoggleBox. Googlebox is a wildly popular BBC show that features people watching other shows. It’s like Mystery Science Theater, but with the camera focused on the people watching, if that makes any sense.
In this sketch Burnham absolutely houses down some snacks while Rotherham voices his desire for SNL UK to one day impersonate him. The piece moves to clips from shows such as Celebrity Traitors. (“All that spicy backstabbing and plotting…reminds of when I got this job” Burnham quips). We also see Prince William on Graham Norton, and a bit from Bake Off with Noel Fielding and Ania Magliano as Nigela Lawson. (“Food is a lot like sex. I have it.”)
This would have been enough for the US version…a parade of impersonations. But SNL UK goes one more step with Paddy Young showing up as a future version of Burnham. He shows a headline announcing “Nation Suffers Massive Cyber Attack!!”, and says only present Burnham can save the future by having people eat beans and sardines…if the want.
Burnham announces this to the public and future Burnham returns saying he made a difference, and showing a headline that states “Nation Eats Beans During Cyber Attack”.
It’s just that extra weird little layer that elevates this to an original and fresh opening.
Monologue
Elphaba herself, Cynthia Erivo hosts and declares that the British SNL has “all the fun of the regular show with the threat of deportation.”
The star with the famously serious face jokes that she is “the silliest goose you’ve ever met” before honking.
She shows stoic photos of her in thrilling situations and ends with a picture of her laughing at a funeral.
She then makes fun of her prodigiously long fingernails, imitating how she uses them to eat corn on the cob in a bit that is way funnier in execution than it is in the explaining.
She notes she’d like to be on Bake Off, at which point Larry Dean pops on stage still as Noel Fielding and shouts at her that she has 30 seconds left in her monologue.
Erivo is generally funny in her monolgue while also being just plain interesting.
The Cher Witch Project
In this oddly untimely pre-taped trailer, we see the crew from The Blair Witch Project wandering through the woods finding CDs dangling from tree branches and Grammy Awards on the ground. It turns out that the are being menaced not by the witch, but by superstar Cher.
The crew screams, “She’s a triple threat” and “She has hits in every decade!” as various iterations of Cher menace them.
Forget the fact that Blair Witch came out in the last millennium, the execution of the parody is brilliantly done. It is admittedly not that funny once the gag is revealed, but the execution is flawless.
The Princess in the Tower
Erivo is a Rapunzel-like princess trapped in a tower, when a brave prince (Hammed Animashaun) arrives to rescue her.
Annimashaun has come to rescue her.
Instead of lowering her hair, she lowers a grotesque, twisty toenail. When the Prince balks, she entreats him to just do it. He responds, “No man, that’s different than what they said. That’s rank.”
She then declares that he is rank and the fight escalates until the Prince rides off on his non-existent horse saying, “Im going to go see that white girl with the dwarves.”
Celeste Dring then pops up in the tower and its revealed that the whole thing was a ploy so the two could stay blissfully alone in the tower.
Nigerian Wicked
Kudos to this one for raw originality and production values. This is an add for a a bootleg video of Nigerian Wicked, starring Erivo and Ayoade Bamgboye. Everything about the production is bad and nonsensical. The piece really does a great job of capturing the feel of a cheap knockoff product. This is a really odd comparison, but if you ever saw Strange Brew, the Bob & Doug McKenzie tribute to Hamlet, you may remember the movie opened with a poorly made sci-fi movie. This felt like that to me, and was just as delightfully joyous.
Bed & Breakfast
A couple (Al Nash and Annabel Marlow) are at a bed & breakfast where they join another couple (Erivo and Freddie Meredith) who are very odd. They say they are traveling the country following the Simply Red tribute band, Slight Red. They proceed to do odd things like brew tea in their mouths (“nature’s cups”), make loud bird calls,
Finally Nash and Marlow are weirded out enough that they leave, and it is then that the other couple reveal they are international assassins who just wanted to run them off.
Weekend Update
“Run your bath and plug in your toaster’s, it’s budget week.” is the quote that starts off the most British Update segment to date.
There are several jokes about - and I am not making this job title up - Chancellor of the Exchequer, John Healy, comparing him to a vampire.
There’s a discussion about Megan Markle’s dad being accused of pedophila, which is described as “another pathetic attempt to court the British public” by Markle. This is tagged with the thought that if the accusation is true, maybe Markle will finally be accepted as a royal.
We are told about a Glee reboot that some didn’t think could go forward since the original was plagued by tragedies ”including cast deaths, also being written produced and broadcast.”
There’s a couple of weird, and, alas, not hilarious desk segments. In one, following a story of what doctors have found in people’s rectums, we get a Lego man (Meredith) and a boiled egg (Marlow). The man notes he “lost my hat in there” while the egg tells Ania it’s good to see her again.
We also get seasonal dating tips from return Jack Shep character Scimpch. This return character is every bit as annoying as some US SNL recurring characters (Domingo, I’m looking at you), and I don’t really get it. Is this something our British cousins find funny?
Still, perhaps the most British bit of the season comes when Scrimpch suggests dressing as something really scary for Halloween, “like Milton Keynes or my childhood.” or…that time he lost his brogues, which leads to a song.
There’s other bits that are a little edgy (Hitler’s Eagles’ Nest burned down, and white smoke means they’ve elected a new Hitler) and an extended bit where Ania says some very inappropriate things about grandfathers.
Finally, there’s a whole weird thing where production assistant, Mr. Sloth, dies during the segment. We get an in memoriam reel before fading to commercial.
And this is where Weekend Update shines. It could have easily been a clone of the American version, but this crew has managed to put a unique stamp on the segment while still honoring its roots. Well done, innit?
Wedding Reception
Dring and Animashaun are at their wedding reception when the band (Ayode and Erivo) he hired appears. They are a rap duo who only do songs complaining about the Thames water utility. Although the sketch overstays its welcome, it is funny that Ayode forcefully shuts down Erivo every time she starts to talk or rap. The bit culminates with real life rapper Headi One (I’m told he’s big in England) joins in the criticism of Thames Water.
This sketch didn’t feel as fresh as some others, and that may be a function of the fact that “wedding reception” sketches are ubiquitous on the US version (still looking at you, Domingo!).
Modern Music
I can’t even describe this musical number by Erivo and Marlow that would have not made air in America. It’s raunchy and funny, and is in the right time slot as the last sketch of the night.
The Goodbye Wave
Best Sketch: Nigerian Wicked was just so original and well done, I have to give it kudos.
Worst Sketch: The Wedding Reception sketch. I just wasn’t in the mood for reheated buffet fare, I suppose
Random Notes:
- The first half of this season was bookended by Wicked stars. Jeff Goldblum was the first host of the season. I guess they love those movies over there! (By the way, how did Wicked, a book that was more political satire than anything else, get turned into a musical that is beloved by so many people? Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good show, and the book was interesting, but the two seem more like cousins than twins. I hope you enjoyed my rant on Wicked.)
- I didn’t like musical guest Blossoms, but mainly because of that one guy’s suit.
- SNL UK is done for the year. It’s final six episodes for the season will kick off in January.
Cynthia Erivo was a fun and game host. The sketches played to her strengths while also giving her the chance to get silly and a little out there. This was a light and fluffy episode. It may not have been filled with downright gut busters, but it also didn’t have me furiously clicking my heels to return to the home version of the show.
Grade: B-
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