Ruth Pickett tunes into SNL UK

12 June 2026

When SNL launched in the UK earlier this year, Hungry Man director Ruth Pickett was given the tricky task of making trails that matched the vibe of the show.

When word broke that the US comedy institution Saturday Night Live was getting a UK edition, there weren't many people who thought it would be a triumph. Previous attempts to emulate SNL on this side of the Atlantic had fallen short and there was the worry that it would be dominated by the cartel of comics who seem to have a firm grip of the TV opportunities over here.

Any pessimism was ill-founded though as the show turned out to be a huge success. Far from drawing from the pool of 'usual suspects', the producers shrewdly cast their net into the world of stand-up and online comedy and uncovered burgeoning talent instead of turning to established acts. They then filled the writing room with equally talented up-and-comers and the outcome was electric, with the team creating a number of iconic sketches in the first run of eight programmes.

As with the US edition, the choice of guest stars is pivotal, as they are always more famous than the cast, and will draw their own fan bases to the programme. Combining the young stars of the programme with higher status guests brings its own challenges though and it must be a delicate negotiation to keep everyone happy, at the same time as ensuring the outcome is sufficiently edgy.

Among those facing these competing demands was Hungry Man rosteree Ruth Pickett who was charged with directing a series of trails for SNL UK, each featuring cast members and guests. Like the programmes themselves, these must have been written at breakneck speed and filmed at pace.

The trail for the programme in which Riz Ahmed guested is a case in point. The sketch riffs on the idea that Ahmed is a tricky character and that's a notion that inevitably leads to tricky terrain. To make the joke work, Pickett had to find the sweet spot where Ahmed is sending himself up without distancing the fictionalised version of himself to an extent that it kills the comedy.

As you can see from the resulting sketch, she has absolutely nailed it.

The sketch featuring Jack Whitehall had a different challenge to navigate. At the heart of it lay the idea that Jack Shep had emerged as the standout star of the early programmes, and in a highly competitive environment this is bound to have been logged by the other cast members. Riffing on it must have required some delicacy but once again everyone generously mucks in and lands the jokes, with both Jacks - Whitehall and Shep - playing their parts to perfection.

Finally, we have a sketch featuring Jamie Dornan which is playful with the idea that he is one of the actors in the running to play James Bond, with the joke mainly built around the preposterous idea that cast member Al Nash has a better opportunity at landing the gig.

This teeters towards being a cruel joke at the expense of Nash, but is kept on the straight and narrow by the the performances of Celeste Dring and Hammed Animashaun as they endorse the superiority of Nash's candidacy without a hint of mockery.

These three sketches are a skilful exhibition of star wrangling and comedy, with Ruth Pickett demonstrating a flair for getting her players to deliver performances that service the comic idea rather than themselves. This is the ethos that runs through the whole programme, of course, but no one should underestimate the difficulty of this task, and this is a masterclass.