‘Saturday Night Live’ Can’t Escape This “Outdated” Part of Its Past

When Saturday Night Live came to the UK, the British team behind SNL UK initially thought one of the American show’s longest-running traditions was outdated. Cue cards seemed like an unnecessarily cumbersome way to deliver lines when an autocue offered a more advanced alternative. But with John Mulaney returning to host a new episode tonight, those handwritten cards will once again help keep Studio 8H running. The practical realities of producing a live sketch show quickly changed the British team’s perspective.

Speaking at the Edinburgh TV Festival 2026 earlier this summer, Phil Edgar-Jones, James Longman, and Liz Clare explained why the British production had come to rely on the very system it initially rejected, with help from veteran Wally Feresten, the head cue-card holder on the American Saturday Night Live for more than 35 years.

Their discovery highlights a fundamental problem with trying to modernize Saturday Night Live after 50+ years. Some of its quirky production methods are essential to the format because of how unique it is. The scripts change too frequently for the cast to memorize their lines, and the sketches depend on performers being able to read those changes without compromising the camera work. Cue cards solve both problems while allowing the show to remain flexible until transmission. For SNL UK, learning how to make the American format work has meant recognizing that not everything needs updating.

Why ‘SNL UK’ Can’t Replace ‘Saturday Night Live’s Cue Cards With an Autocue

Cue cards are one of the most recognizable features of Saturday Night Live, yet their continued use can look strange in an industry where autocue technology is commonplace. The British team initially shared that view. Sky UK’s Unscripted Originals Executive Director Phil Edgar-Jones explained at the Edinburgh TV Festival that the team questioned why the American production still used them, describing the reaction as one of disbelief.

The problem was that Saturday Night Live is not a conventional scripted comedy in which performers can learn their lines during rehearsals and deliver the same dialogue when the cameras start rolling. Sketches are continually rewritten, and the final version may differ from what the cast has rehearsed earlier in the week or even at the dress rehearsal on the Saturday! Lead Producer, SNL UK, James Longman explained, “They know when they look at the cue card, what’s on there is the final honest version of the show.”

The revisions do not necessarily stop when the show is about to begin either. Longman explained that changes can still happen during commercial breaks. “It’s happening all the time,” he said. That is a particularly important consideration for a program built around topical comedy, where a sketch may need to respond to a developing story or a last-minute production decision. The ability to make changes right up to transmission is part of what gives Saturday Night Live its distinctive character, and cue cards allow SNL UK to preserve that flexibility. But wouldn’t an autocue do the same?

An autocue would change how the sketches are filmed. Longman explained that cue cards allow the production team to control performers’ eyelines, ensuring that they can read their lines while appearing to address another character. “We don’t want people looking down the barrel of a camera,” he said. “It’s drama. It’s sketch.” If performers had to read from a fixed monitor, they could end up looking directly at the lens rather than at the person they are supposed to be speaking to. That would make the dialogue feel less like a conversation and more like a presenter reading from a script.

Cue cards can instead be positioned according to the requirements of each joke. Longman noted that the team can use smaller cards when space is limited or larger ones when a performer is farther away. This flexibility matters when sketches require different sets, blocking, and camera angles. A monitor is not always practical in a confined space, whereas a card can be placed wherever the performer needs it. The system allows the production to accommodate changing dialogue while maintaining the visual language of the sketch.

How Wally Feresten Trained ‘SNL UK’s Cue-Card Team for Live Television

Once the British production recognized that cue cards were essential, they had to learn how to use them properly. Writing dialogue on cards may sound straightforward, but the process requires speed, consistency and an understanding of how performers will read them on stage. Longman recalled that the team recruited experts in autocue operation to train as cue-card operators. “And they thought we were mad, too,” he said, describing their reaction to being taught a method that initially seemed less advanced than the technology they already knew.

To help the new team learn that system, SNL UK brought over Wally Feresten, who worked on the American Saturday Night Live for more than 35 years. Longman described him as “a legend” and explained that he taught the British team how to prepare and present the cards. Director Liz Clare described the cue-card team’s work as a “dark art”, referring to “the speed and clarity with which you’d have to write” them.

‘SNL UK’ Adapted to the Cue Cards Perfectly

Image via Sky/Eva Pentel/Matt Crockett

The production also had to consider the materials being used, with Clare explaining that the team needed non-toxic pens because operators could spend eight hours a day writing cards! The team uses different ink colors for different cast members, making it easier for performers to identify their lines quickly. The cards are also kept for future use. Clare explained that if a sketch returns in a later episode, the team can retrieve the existing set rather than write it all out again. Each sketch has three sets of distinct cards, and they are kept in a physical archive.

For performers, the adjustment can take some getting used to. Edgar-Jones recalled that Season 1 host Jamie Dornan was initially nervous when he had to read cue cards during a hostage sketch. Dornan reportedly wondered whether he could do the show at all, but by Saturday night he had “absolutely nailed it and loved it.” The technique requires performers to adapt, but it is a skill they can learn.

Saturday Night Live has used cue cards for decades, and their continued presence is not only a matter of preserving tradition. They allow the show to incorporate last-minute rewrites while giving performers the freedom to maintain natural eyelines and interact with one another on stage. SNL UK initially assumed that newer technology would offer a better solution, only to discover that the older method was better suited to the format it was trying to reproduce.

Saturday Night Live UK Season 2 Part 2 returns on Sky One in the UK in January 2027 and streams the next day on Peacock in the U.S.