Saturday Live
1986
📺 3 Seasons
🎬 30 Episodes
📅 Ended
🌐 EN
Comedy
Saturday Live was a British television comedy and music show broadcast by Channel 4 from 1985 to 1987, and in 1988 as Friday Night Live. Influenced by the American show Saturday Night Live, it was produced by Paul Jackson.
The series made stars of Ben Elton, Harry Enfield, Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, and featured appearances by Patrick Marber, Morwenna Banks, Chris Barrie, Emo Philips, Craig Ferguson, Craig Charles and many others. The show featured comic duo Adrian Edmondson and Rik Mayall in their act The Dangerous Brothers.
All episodes were transmitted live, although some material was pre-recorded. Recordings of shows were edited into compilation repeats, retitled Saturday Almost Live.
The show was succeeded by Friday Night Live, a shorter and slightly more tightly-formatted show with Elton as the permanent host, which ran for a single series in 1988. The show's titles consisted of reforming clay animations, highly comparable to early MTV idents.
Seasons
Season 1
Tracey Ullman Introduction
John Sparkes Shadwell (character)
music INXS This Time
The Oblivion Boys Staring contest
Tracey Ullman, Jon Glover, Mac McDonald (pre-filmed) The River Country
John Bird An unemployed defence minister (character)
Tracey Ullman, Amanda Dickinson Kay Clark (character) (Almost:2) (DVD:SL1)
Robin Driscoll, Rebecca Stevens, Pete McCarthy, Tony Haase, Suggs Rich (soap opera parody)
Pete McCarthy News Flash
Sam Kinison American Stand-up (Almost:4) (DVD:SL1)
Pete McCarthy Snooker
Wizardz Fire dance
Pete McCarthy News Flash
John Wells (pre-filmed) A Life of Reilli
music Squeeze King George Street
Tracey Ullman Stand-up
Fry & Laurie Chocolate Goodies (DVD:SL1, FLEE)
The Dangerous Brothers (pre-filmed) Canon/Big Stunt (DVD:DB, SL1)
Tracey Ullman Betty Tomlinson (character) - Two years on (DVD:SL1)
Ben Elton Professional liar (DVD:SL1, FLEE)
music Feargal Sharkey You Little Thief (Almost:4)
Season 2
Ben Elton Intro and stand-up: Jools Holland F word + politics (DVD:SL2)
music The Communards You Are My World
Fry & Laurie Take your clothes off (DVD:FLEE)
Harry Enfield Stavros (character): Bloody thick or sumthink (DVD:SL2, FLEE)
music Meat Loaf Blind Before I Stop
music Timbuk3 The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades
Phil Cornwell Impressions (Almost:1)
Meat Loaf, Stephen Fry Lost in translation (DVD:SL2, FLEE)
Julian Clary Joan Collins Fan Club (DVD:SL2)
Ben Elton, Stephen Fry Hospital/Last Words (DVD:SL2, FLEE)
music The Communards Heavens Above
Charles Fleischer American stand-up (Almost:1) (DVD:SL2)
Hugh Laurie, Harry Enfield, Meat Loaf Driving lesson (DVD:FLEE)
Ben Elton Stand-up: Tampon ads (DVD:FLEE)
music Meat Loaf Rock & Roll Mercenaries
Season 3
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. Shorter and slightly more tightly formatted show, it retained Ben Elton as permanent host.
Crew
Director
Paul Jackson, Geoff Perkins, Geoff Posner
Network
Channel 4
Production
LWT