''Saturday Live'' (retitled ''Friday Night Live'' for the 1988 series and 2022 one-off special) is a British

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

comedy Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term o ...

and

music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect ...

show, made by

LWT London Weekend Television (LWT) (now part of the non-franchised ITV London region) was the ITV network franchise holder for Greater London and the Home Counties at weekends, broadcasting from Fridays at 5.15 pm (7:00 pm from 1968 unt ...

and initially broadcast on

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...

from 1985 to 1988, with a brief revival on ITV in 1996. A few one-off editions have also been screened sporadically, including a contribution to the BBC's 1993 Comic Relief telethon. It was based on the American sketch comedy show ''

Saturday Night Live ''Saturday Night Live'' (often abbreviated to ''SNL'') is an American late-night live television sketch comedy and variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC and Peacock. Michaels currently serves a ...

'' although it had no direct connection to the show. The series made stars of Ben Elton and Harry Enfield, and featured appearances (in some cases first television appearances) by Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie,

Patrick Marber Patrick Albert Crispin Marber (born 19 September 1964) is an English comedian, playwright, director, actor, and screenwriter. Early life Marber was born and raised in a middle-class Jewish family in Wimbledon, London, the son of Angela (Benjam ...

Morwenna Banks Tamsin Morwenna Banks (born 20 September 1961) is a British comedy actress, writer and producer. She appeared in the Channel 4 comedy sketch show '' Absolutely'', and wrote, produced, and appeared in the British ensemble film ''The Announcemen ...

Chris Barrie Chris Barrie (born Christopher Jonathan Brown, 28 March 1960) is a British actor, comedian, and impressionist. He worked as a vocal impressionist on the ITV sketch show ''Spitting Image'' (1984–1996) and as Lara Croft's butler Hillary in the ...

Julian Clary Julian Peter McDonald Clary (born 25 May 1959) is an English actor, comedian, novelist and presenter. He began appearing on television in the mid-1980s. Since then he has also acted in films, television and stage productions, numerous pantomim ...

Emo Philips Emo Philips (born Philip Soltanec February 7, 1956) is an American actor, stand-up comedian, writer and producer. His stand-up comedy persona makes use of paraprosdokians spoken in a wandering falsetto tone of voice. The confused, childlike deli ...

, Tracey Ullman,

Craig Ferguson Craig Ferguson (born 17 May 1962) is a Scottish-born American comedian, actor, writer, and television host. He is best known for hosting the CBS late-night talk show ''The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson'' (2005–2014), for which he won a ...

, Craig Charles and many others. The show featured comic duo Adrian Edmondson and Rik Mayall in their act

The Dangerous Brothers The Dangerous Brothers was a stage and TV act by anarchic comedy duo Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson, performing respectively as "Richard Dangerous" and "Sir Adrian Dangerous". Originally appearing on stage in London at the comedy club 'The Comic Stri ...

. The introductory theme was an original composition by Paul Hardcastle.

History

All episodes were transmitted live but contained a small proportion of material recorded beforehand. Recordings of shows were edited into compilation repeats, titled ''Saturday Almost Live''. The third series, ''Friday Night Live'', renamed to reflect its scheduling move to the titular day, is the last of the programme's original iteration. A shorter and slightly tighter-formatted show, it retained Elton as regular host. The show's title sequence consisted of re-forming clay animations, highly comparable to early

MTV MTV (Originally an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable channel that launched on August 1, 1981. Based in New York City, it serves as the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group, part of Paramount Media Networks, a di ...

idents. The show was resurrected as a segment for 1993's Red Nose Day BBC telethon, hosted by Ben Elton, with appearances by

Reeves and Mortimer Reeves may refer to: People * Reeves (surname) * B. Reeves Eason (1886–1956), American director, actor and screenwriter * Reeves Nelson (born 1991), American basketball player Places ;Ireland * Reeves, County Kildare, townland in County Ki ...

, Eddie Izzard, Hugh Laurie, and David Baddiel and Rob Newman. The show made a return in 1996 on ITV, regaining a Saturday slot and retitled accordingly. Hosted by

Lee Hurst Lee Hurst (born 16 October 1962) is an English comedian. Hurst was a regular panellist on the comedy sports quiz ''They Think It's All Over'' from 1995 to 1997. Career Hurst took up comedy after being employed in a number of jobs after leav ...

, it featured comedians including Harry Hill and Simon Munnery. The series lasted eight episodes before being axed. On 1 December 2007, the programme was revived by ITV for a one-off titled ''Saturday Live Again'', presented by Marcus Brigstocke. Comedians included Jimmy Carr, Lee Mack,

Mitchell and Webb Mitchell and Webb are a British comedy double act, composed of David Mitchell and Robert Webb. They are best known for starring in the Channel 4 sitcom ''Peep Show'' and their radio and TV sketch shows '' That Mitchell and Webb Sound'' and '' ...

, and

Jocelyn Jee Esien Jocelyn Jee Esien (born 2 March 1979) is a British comedian, actress and writer of Nigerian origin. She stars in the hidden-camera show '' 3 Non-Blondes'', and her own comedy sketch show, ''Little Miss Jocelyn''.Laura Barnett"Jocelyn Jee Esien: ...

. The original show's regular host Ben Elton also performed. There were musical performances by

Bon Jovi Bon Jovi is an American Rock music, rock band formed in 1983 in Sayreville, New Jersey. It consists of singer Jon Bon Jovi, keyboardist David Bryan, drummer Tico Torres, guitarist Phil X, and bassist Hugh McDonald (American musician), Hugh McD ...

and

Hard-Fi Hard-Fi are an English indie rock band, formed in 2003 in Staines-upon-Thames, Surrey. The band's most recent lineup before going on hiatus consisted of Richard Archer (lead vocals and guitar), Kai Stephens (bass guitar and backing vocals) and S ...

. In August 2022, it was announced the programme was being revived for a one-off special, as part of Channel 4's 40th-anniversary celebrations, and would again be hosted by Ben Elton. The special aired on 21 October 2022. The special gained notoriety for a musical performance in which

transgender A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through tr ...

comedian

Jordan Gray Jordan Redford Gossamer Gray (born 11 January 1989) is an English comedian and singer from Essex. After beginning her career as a singer, she released several independent singles and albums. She appeared on the fifth series of ''The Voice UK' ...

stripped nude to a live audience.

Home releases

A compilation double

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...

set, ''Saturday Live: The Best of Series One'', was released in June 2007, containing almost two-and-a-half hours of material. This consisted of the ''Saturday Almost Live'' compilations with the music performances removed. ''Saturday Live: The Best of Series 2'' was released on 4 February 2008 and followed the same pattern, as did the ''Friday Night Live'' release. In 2009, a fourth release, a 3-disc set collecting all the show's Fry & Laurie and Harry Enfield sketches and the best Ben Elton monologues, was released.

Transmissions

Series

''Almost Live''

Specials

References

External links

* * * * * BFI.org.uk - transmission information fo
Saturday Live
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Friday Night Live
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