In its return, SNL UK reluctantly welcomes back Harry and Meghan

Like its American ancestor, SNL UK front-loads its mandatory political impressions up top, here seeing their King Charles (Larry Dean, looking for all the world like Adam Driver’s Abraham H. Parnassus) and Emma Sidi’s martini-quaffing Queen Camilla begrudgingly welcoming former American transplants Harry (Jack Shep) and Meghan (Ayoade Bamgboye) to the royals’ Balmoral Castle retreat. 

“This castle is for royals only!,” the King snaps at his son, bringing recognition laughs from a live audience all too aware of the returning Harry and Meghan’s tenuous position in the perhaps oxymoronic “working royals” hierarchy. As Harry complains that the couple’s hefty Netflix check only stretches so far, that same crowd practically loses it at Charles’ comeback, “You’re just lucky your father’s not around to see this,” bringing the touchy conspiracy surrounding Harry’s true parentage right out into the open. 

From there, it was mainly an excuse for breakout SNL UK star George Fouracres to transition from his former Prime Minister Keir Starmer to the bluff, recently-installed new guy, Andy Burnham. “I’m the new PM,” Fouracres boomed in Burham’s Northern accent, before adding with a wink, “And I’m nothing like the last one!” As is no doubt the case for UK viewers whenever the U.S. iteration gets granular about American political events, Peacock viewers are trusted to hang onto the sketch’s broadly drawn approximations of the British political landscape to get the gags, as Burnham’s try-hard populism emerge in his promise to buy every single person in the land a pint.

As Saturday Night Live cold opens go, the first sketch of the season trafficked in outsized impressions, energetic performances and the satirical subtlety of a fun fair sledgehammer. Which suggests that this version of America’s venerable TV sketch institution may have learned its forebear’s lessons a little too well.