SNL UK

[David Bruggeman]

I spent my Sunday watching the first two episodes.  I'll likely keep watching, probably catching up when the US show is in repeats.

My take on both episodes is in the same neighborhood as most everyone else commenting on episode 1.  Most stuff was middle of the pack, Weekend Update was good, sketches often run way too long.  I did think Jamie Dornan was more gung ho about the material than Tina Fey was, but YMMV.

I barely have a sense of most of the cast, which would be true for any group of new cast on the US version, especially when there are what, 12 of them?  I am familiar with Ania Magliano (Weekend Update) and Emma Siddi (the one speaking Spanish in the Pub Song video) since I watched some of their Taskmaster episodes.  A couple others have grabbed my attention, but I think it'll take more than 8 episodes for me to get a handle on the whole cast.

I did watch the credits on both episodes, and there seems to be a *lot* of US involvement besides Lorne.  It's licensed from Universal like that Tonight Show clone in Mongolia I posted about a few months ago.  The cue card guy for SNL US and Late Night with Seth Meyers is credited on both episodes, along with about 5 other cue card people.   I really don't see how the freaking cue cards need input from the US.

[Mark Jeffries]

I have the feeling that the UK is very much a prompter (or 'autocue")
country and that Lorne wanted the same reliance on cue cards on the UK
version as on the U.S. version.

Mark Jeffries
spotl...@gmail.com

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[Tom Wolper]

The cue card holders also have to know how to stay in the sight line of a performer while keeping out of the camera shot. If the performers are walking around during the sketch, it can be a challenge for the cue card holder.

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[Adam Bowie]

In fact, I suspect that it's not super-easy to get work permits for something like cue-card holders. While we're not quite as unionised as US productions, there are pretty strong unions here, and it's not easy for non-UK staff to get positions on UK shows. Even with acting roles, there is some kind of quid-pro-quo that goes on. There are some rules that allow for international actors to take high value roles. But below-the-line is super-tough to get work permits for. It's not like there is a shortage of trained production staff in the UK.

Perhaps there are some US folk coming over to show British assistants how to do cue-cards. But unless we have zero people capable of it, the chance of getting work is low.

That all said, it's true that cue-cards are not commonly used in UK productions AFAIK. In the mid-nineties, I remember seeing a recording of The Friday Night Armistice featuring a very young Armando ("Veep") Iannucci, which was a weekly topical 30 minute comedy show that was recorded perhaps the day before transmission. I don't recall seeing cue cards there. Autocues were much more likely, and the format leant that way. There were also recorded bits they dropped in, and which allowed for sets to be shuffled around. They also had a load of pick-ups at the end of quite a long record. In fact, The Friday Night Armistice was shot in TC1 in Television Centre, which is the same studio SNL UK is using. 


Adam

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[Doug Eastick]

If I was licensing a franchise, I would want to ensure that all the burgers and various recipes we were delivering were according to the corporate standards.  If that involves training how to run the writers room on a Tuesday, and how to write up the cue cards on Friday and Saturday, and then hold them in a certain way, then I expect the training.

For season 2 , or maybe later episodes of season 1, maybe the home office names will drop off the credits, once the Brits figure out how much salt to apply to the fries. 

/Doug
eas...@mcd.on.ca

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