Saturday Night Live UK reviews are in

Saturday Night Live UK's opening show has been greeted with cautious but generally positive reviews.

The US version of SNL, broadcast in America on NBC, is a pop culture institution which has been running for 50 years, and launched the careers of stars including Bill Murray, Tina Fey, Eddie Murphy, Pete Davidson, Kristen Wiig and Will Ferrell. While expectations have been high at Sky HQ that a UK version of the format will be successful, others have pointed out the challenges of creating new event TV in such a fragmented media world.

But, according to Steve Bennett, writing for the British comedy website Chortle, the SNL UK debut has delivered. "Whisper it, but I think they might just have nailed it," he writes "[The show has] been greeted with either feverish excitement that it could instantly become as successful as its parent, reviving British sketch comedy at a stroke, or aggressive pessimism that it'll be shit - an unwelcome transatlantic invasion that couldn't possibly work with our more cynical sense of humour.

"Neither is absolutely true but tonight's episode, a very strong opener, offers great hope it's the former." The show was seen by 226,000 viewers in its 10PM slot on Sky One and won a 3.2% share of the available TV audience at the time, according to official BARB figures reported on the Deadline website. Read more: 'The idea that it's going to be a bit naff, it's just insane to me' Elsewhere, the Independent's Nick Hilton gave the debut three stars out of five, for "some hits, some misses, and a bang-on Princess Di impression".

"Judging a show like SNL off its opening episode is foolish.