Cast and crew talk about the process

Saturday Night Live UK ditches two sketches each week just hours before broadcast.

Makers of the Sky show have revealed how they go to the expense of making sets, costumes and more for six sketches each week – but two get dropped after the dress rehearsal early on Saturday evening.

Speaking at the Edinburgh TV festival, lead producer James Longman explained the demanding weekly production schedule on the programme.

He said: ‘On Monday the host comes in for the first time, meets us all, we write the pitch and see what the host is into. The writers all go away and start writing their sketches and then stuff starts moving. Some of the writers work together, some work solo.

‘On Wednesday we have a big table read. The host comes in, the cast sit around the table, and the writers are in the room. We read 30 to 35 sketches that they've written. There's a real purity to it because you get a sense in the room at that moment of which sketches could work, what's funny, and what might not work. After that, a small group of us pick six sketches and those sketches all go into production.

‘On Wednesday night all of the departments start making the sets and the wardrobe. There's a speed-dating process where they all get together and start putting everything together.

‘On Thursday and Friday it's blocking [working out where the cast and cameras should be]  and the scripts get rewritten – they're constantly being rewritten.  While that's happening there are two VTs on Thursday and Friday so the [video] team are doing that.

‘On Saturday we do a technical run-through where we see the wardrobe and the set for the first time. We have 20 minutes to block each sketch and then we do a dress rehearsal on Saturday evening at 6pm where an audience comes in. We run a long show. That is the first time you feel the energy on camera: what works, what doesn't work, and what always works and doesn't work.

‘After that we have a little small huddle where we lose two sketches. Between dress and the actual show we have about 90 minutes to rewrite.’

He added that sketches that did not make the cut sometimes got re-pitched but generally didn’t capture the imagination the second time around amid the energy needed to make a new show from scratch each week.

All involved said they had to accept beloved ideas and lines would be dropped in the process.

Cast member Emma Sidi said she hated the ‘brutal’ Wednesday read-through as there was ‘hours and hours of hilarious stuff and you just have to let it go but that's the level we have to be at.’

She revealed one of her favourites cut at that point featured guest host Jamie Dornan on a Loose Women-style set, blowing bubbles. ‘It went really well. Just all the other sketches were way better. I really was able to accept it was cut.’

Head writer Daran ‘Jonno’ Johnson revealed one of his own that was cut was set on a planet  where everybody was called Paul Selby and they couldn't understand how Earth society worked when everybody had different names..'

And cast member Jack Shep said his favourite that didn’t even make it that far was about people ‘convincing their friend to not break up with her boyfriend, who was a blob because he worked at Jo Malone.’ But he accepted: ‘ Is it more than one sentence? No…’

Jonno said the secret to a hit sketch was simplicity, adding: 'You have to tell people what the sketch is about within the first 30 seconds, in a way that you can get away with not doing on a live [stage] show. For some reason people need to know, "What is this one, because I do want to join in?"’

Longman also revealed the cast was chosen from 2,000 audition tapes with 40 or 50 invited to a live audition. ‘Our team watched every one of them,’ he said. ‘It’s so tough because it’s five minutes on tape, just people doing their best they can in their bedroom.’

Jonno added they also received about 1,800 packages from hopefuls wanting to join the 19-strong writers’ room

He added: ‘The deadline for writing packets was the week the Pope died so you would not believe how many sketches I read about the death of the Pope. But that meant that everyone was measured against each other.

‘I would say that the thing that they [the writers] all have in common – and this sounds like a joke but I genuinely mean this – is that they're all very cheeky. By which I mean the people who are willing to play…. and they are resilient.’

Shep also spoke of the stress of making the show – and reading the reactions online before the first episode had even aired. ‘I can’t overestimate the mental impact of going on your phone and reading hundreds of comments of saying, you know, "kill yourself". It was deeply stressful.’ But he said the show being well-received on its own terms was ultimately a ‘catharsis’.

Kevin Fortune, head of wigs, hair, and make-up, told how getting the cast into and their outfits was ‘like a pit stop’.

He said he has three days to make everything ‘sometimes up to 50 wigs’ while they hold scans of every cast member’s face. 

Fortune also revealed that all the women hosts wear wigs that match their own hair, so it can be more easily styled.

Saturday Night Live UK  returns to Sky on September 12

Published: 28 Aug 2026