{"id":359185,"date":"2026-03-22T10:59:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T10:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/359185\/"},"modified":"2026-03-22T10:59:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T10:59:09","slug":"nicola-coughlan-among-celebrity-guests-in-snl-uk-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/359185\/","title":{"rendered":"Nicola Coughlan among celebrity guests in SNL UK debut"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saturday Night Live UK has kicked off its first show with guest appearances from Bridgerton star Nicola Coughlan, TV presenter Graham Norton and Canadian actor Michael Cera.<\/p>\n

The first episode of the sketch show was hosted by American actress and comedian Tina Fey, who was joined by the surprise celebrity guests during her opening monologue.<\/p>\n

The show kicked off with a sketch starring cast member George Fouracres as British Prime Minister Keir Starmer dodging a call from US President Donald Trump, before cutting to Fey’s monologue.<\/p>\n

The 55-year-old introduced herself as the “youngest person to ever host” the show and said that viewers may know her as “the teacher from Mean Girls”.<\/p>\n

\"NEW
\nUS comedian Tina Fey kicked off the first episode of SNL UK last night<\/p>\n

Irish actress Coughlan interrupted the monologue to ask Fey: “If it\u2019s SNL UK then why are you our first host? Shouldn\u2019t it be a British icon like David Beckham or Judi Dench or Shrek?”<\/p>\n

“Wait, Shrek is British?” Fey asked and Coughlan elicited a laugh from the crowd with her response as she said: “Scotland is in Britain Tina, educate yourself.”<\/p>\n

Fey then quipped: “The way it was explained to me was that for this first episode, anyway, how do I put this politely, none of you would do it. Does that make sense?”<\/p>\n

\"US
\nMichael Cera also appeared on the new show<\/p>\n

Arrested Development star Cera also made a cameo to call out Fey on her swearing, surprised by the fact the British version of the US sketch show can include explicit language.<\/p>\n

Norton also appeared to announce that the show was being filmed in the same studio as his popular BBC talk show, The Graham Norton Show.<\/p>\n

Fey is known for previously being the head writer and lead cast member on the sketch show\u2019s US version.<\/p>\n

During the show, sketches were performed by the inaugural cast: Fouracres, Hammed Animashaun, Ayoade Bamgboye, Larry Dean, Celeste Dring, Ania Magliano, Annabel Marlow, Al Nash, Jack Shep, Emma Sidi and Paddy Young.<\/p>\n

The 75-minute episode also featured a performance from Isle Of Wight band Wet Leg as the show\u2019s first musical guest.<\/p>\n

Jonno Johnson is the head writer for the series, joined by 8 Out of 10 Cats\u2019 Charlie Skelton, who is the head writer for the satirical news segment The Weekend Update.<\/p>\n

Other writers on the new sketch show include Stath Lets Flats star Al Roberts, Have I Got News For You\u2019s Bella Hull and comedians Celya AB, Chris Cantrill, Grainne Maguire, Humphrey Ker and James Farmer.<\/p>\n

The show\u2019s US version has been running since 1975, and is responsible for launching the careers of the likes of Fey, Bill Murray and Eddie Murphy.<\/p>\n

Saturday Night Live UK is available to watch on Sky and streaming service Now, with new episodes to air every Saturday.<\/p>\n

Source: Press Association<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Saturday Night Live UK has kicked off its first show with guest appearances from Bridgerton star Nicola Coughlan,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359186,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[93,61,60,282],"class_list":["post-359185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}