Nigel Farage finally gets the SNL UK treatment with ‘jaw-dropping’ cameo

Saturday Night Live UK has already lampooned a number of government ministers in its very first series – with George Fouracres making several appearances as a sheepish Keir Starmer, Celeste Tring impersonating former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner, and Hammed Animashaun starring as her replacement, David Lammy.

But in the cold open which aired this week (9 May), the SNL UK team roped in actor and comedian Peter Serafinowicz (of Shaun of the Dead and Amandaland) to make a cameo appearance – as none other than Reform UK leader and Clacton MP Nigel Farage.

It comes after the results from Thursday's UK local elections saw significant gains for his right-wing party, and major losses for Starmer's Labour.

Fast-forwarding to 2046, his Farage is seen sitting in Downing Street filming Cameos and downing a pint as the UK’s prime minister, before Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch (Ayoade Bamgboye) walks in as his “trusted deputy”.

“Thanks to our deportations, the population of London is finally down to single figures,” Bamgboye says, as the two of them burst into laughter.

The skit goes on to joke that “King Trump” has “almost negotiated a ceasefire over the Strait of Hormuz”, and that Badenoch and Farage have “been unstoppable” since their parties merged, “just like the hantavirus turned out to be”.

Fouracres’ Starmer, Tring’s Rayner and Al Nash’s Sir Winston Churchill end up arriving via a time machine while Farage and Badenoch head out for a “straight pride parade”, but it’s Serafinowicz’s performance as Farage which has X/Twitter users talking:

“This is actually the type of cameo SNL UK should be having, not Jimmy Fallon,” one commented:

Another tweeted: “If they told me even 5 years ago that Peter Serafinowicz would show up on an SNL UK [sic] in a cameo in the cold open as my local MP then I would ask what the catch is”:

“Jaw dropped seeing this at the dress rehearsal. Huge fan of Peter and he killed it with this impersonation,” wrote a third:

And a fourth declared Serafinowicz being back in sketch shows meant “the world is healing”:

The first series of Saturday Night Live UK concludes next week with Doctor Who star Ncuti Gatwa on hosting duties and Holly Humberstone as the musical guest.

It will then return for a second series in September, for an extended run of 12 episodes.

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