British SNL Names Its Inaugural Cast

British audiences will soon hear the line, "Live from London, it's Saturday Night!" Sky has unveiled the first-ever cast of Saturday Night Live UK, a new six-episode take on NBC's long-running late-night staple. The 11 performers are Hammed Animashaun, Ayoade Bamgboye, Larry Dean, Celeste Dring, George Fouracres, Ania Magliano, Annabel Marlow, Al Nash, Jack Shep, Emma Sidi, and Paddy Young, Deadline reports.

• "The UK is absolutely packed with incredible comedy talent right now and this cast represents the freshest voices we have, they're bold, exciting and of course, incredibly funny," lead producer James Longman said, per the BBC. "The chemistry between them is something special and we can't wait to share this funny group of people with the world."

The series debuts March 21 on Sky, more than 50 years after SNL first launched in the US. It's being produced by Universal Television Alternative Studio's UK arm and SNL creator Lorne Michaels' Broadway Video, with Michaels on board as executive producer. The series, the first official British version of SNL, was announced last year. Sky says the show will be "re-imagined through a distinctly British lens."

Helen Wheatley, a professor of film and television at the University of Warwick in England, told the New York Times last year that the move across the pond was no surprise. "In a fairly brutal media environment, people are looking for trusted formats that they know work," she said. Wheatley noted that media cultures in the UK and the US have grown closer together, with US hits like The Office and Dancing With the Stars originating in the UK, and that many British viewers are already familiar with SNL through clips seen online. "Television is endlessly cannibalistic," she said. "It constantly recycles itself."