SNL<\/a> UK star Al Nash, that week\u2019s celebrity host Ncuti Gatwa and eventually the man himself.<\/p>\nHaving had just five days to put the sketch together before the live sketch on the Saturday, SNL UK star Dean tells The Independent how the sketch came to be, when he knew Theroux would be making a cameo and what it was really like when Louis met Larry. <\/p>\n
Coming up with the sketch<\/p>\n
\u201cI was chatting with writer Lorna Rose Treen and she asked, \u2018What kind of impressions do you think you could do?\u2019 I had never actually done a Louis Theroux impression before but I was trying to do one. On SNL, you have to learn impressions very quickly so I end up practising random impressions throughout the week \u2013 I must come across like an absolute nutcase when in between conversations I\u2019ll go, \u2018How would Louis Theroux say that? How would King Charles say that?\u2019 <\/p>\n
![\"'Shall](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Screenshot-2026-08-03-at-11-51-23.png\")
‘Shall we get started?’ Al Nash, Larry Dean and Ncuti Gatwa standing alongside the real Louis Theroux (Sky)<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the US version of the show, they often do sketches where a celebrity is looking in a mirror with a cast member doing an impersonation of them as their reflection \u2013 so Lorna said: \u2018Right, I\u2019m going to write a Louis Theroux one.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cOriginally when we did it in the readthrough, it wasn\u2019t going to have Louis Theroux definitely in it but we thought, \u2018We\u2019ll write him in just so we can see if the show can book him.\u2019 If they couldn\u2019t, the idea was that the whole cast would end up in the Travelodge room, doing the impression.\u201d<\/p>\n
Finding the Louis impersonators<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen Lorna and I were running through the sketch, she would be reading the other parts and wondering who else has got a Louis in them. I knew Al [Nash] did a Louis Theroux on stage and he\u2019s a big fan \u2013 so we got him in. Then we thought it would be really funny if we added that week\u2019s celebrity host, Ncuti Gatwa, in as well. I asked him on the Wednesday if he could do an impression of him and Ncuti said: \u2018I promise I will work on my Louis Theroux.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cThe one thing that was really hard with the impression was that Louis actually never talks to the camera. He usually has a voice over in his documentaries but we couldn\u2019t do that in the middle of a live sketch because if that goes wrong, we\u2019re absolutely done for. So, we came up with a pose that we thought Louis would do \u2013 putting one hand on the elbow and the other by the mouth \u2013 while we did a voiceover straight to the camera.\u201d <\/p>\n
Securing Louis\u2019 cameo<\/p>\n
\u201cWe found out on Thursday night that Louis was interested and then on Friday, his cameo was confirmed. On SNL UK, the whole show is based on \u2018maybe\u2019 \u2013 which is what makes it work because everything is so last minute \u2013 but I genuinely didn\u2019t think he was actually going to do it. Even on the day he was supposed to come, I felt like I was going to be told, \u2018He doesn\u2019t feel well, he\u2019s cancelled,\u2019 or something.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe came for rehearsals, which was very nice \u2013 I didn\u2019t even expect him to do that. I don\u2019t tend to get that nervous for shows but I was terrified for that sketch. We knew it was going to feel really special when they opened the door and everyone saw Louis Theroux. <\/p>\n
\u201cOn the show, there\u2019s always a risk that a sketch might be cut after the dress rehearsal and so I thought, \u2018If Louis comes to do this and they drop it before the live show, he has to go home and this sketch doesn\u2019t go out on TV because of me.\u2019 There was a lot of pressure.\u201d <\/p>\n
Meeting Louis<\/p>\n
\u201cLouis is absolutely lovely to work with \u2013 which was a real relief because when you meet someone you have so much respect for and they\u2019re nice, you go, \u2018Oh thank God.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever cringed so much as when we had to read through the sketch with him. It\u2019s so odd having to do an impersonation to the person that you\u2019re impersonating because it does feel like you\u2019re bullying them. There\u2019s a really nice picture of us all actually \u2013 it\u2019s the first time we all read it through. I\u2019m laughing while reading the cue card, Louis looks a bit embarrassed and Lorna is looking at Louis like, \u2018Is this ok?\u2019 <\/p>\n
\u201cLouis said that he really liked the sketch and that\u2019s why he said yes. He\u2019s been offered other cameos on shows like this and doesn’t usually like doing this stuff. He said that when people impersonate him, he sometimes becomes too self-aware. When myself and Lorna went to Louis\u2019 dressing room to read through the script with him, he hadn\u2019t read the full thing and when he said in the sketch, \u2018Is that fair to say?\u2019 he looked up at Lorna and went, \u2018Do I say that?\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n
![\"\u2018It\u2019s](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1785839052_665_maxresdefault.jpg\")
\u2018It\u2019s so odd having to do an impersonation to the person that you\u2019re impersonating because it does feel like you\u2019re bullying them\u2019 (Sky)<\/p>\n
The audience\u2019s reaction<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring the dress rehearsal, the audience went wild when they saw Louis come out, and afterwards, Louis asked the boss James [Longman]: \u2018When the live audience start cheering, should I talk straight away? I\u2019m not sure about the timing.\u2019 James said: \u2018No, Louis. Let the audience go absolutely mad for you.\u2019 <\/p>\n
\u201cDuring the live show, it was really nice. People were going absolutely wild for a documentarian. He got treated like a rock star.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs for SNL\u2019s return in September, it\u2019s very hard to know who you\u2019ll need to learn to impersonate because of the political climate, but Mick Jagger is one that I\u2019ve always wanted to do. He\u2019s been done before on SNL US but I\u2019d love to see an SNL UK version of him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Larry Dean is currently on tour with his stand-up show Hellbent <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":727090,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-727089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=727089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/727090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=727089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=727089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=727089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}