“Having never experienced it live with the audience, with the cameras, and he's just there. We've got two minutes till we go live. We're all sitting there and he's over near the crowd dancing and dapping up all the audience members and pointing at me: ‘Freddie Meredith, this guy, you're gonna love this guy!’ I was like ‘What the f*** is going on, this is actually insane.’
“I think that was the moment when the penny dropped that, wow, this is unlike anything I've done before.”
This was episode one of SNL UK season two, following a debut run which confounded expectations from viewers and critics alike. Many had preconceptions of the American original being patchy, let alone how that would translate to a British version with a cast entirely free of household names. Near enough immediately it found a loyal audience, whether watching in the titular Saturday night TV slot or, just as likely, watching in a hungover state on a lazy Sunday or being fed the highlights that have gone viral online.
Meredith is a new addition to the show for this season, having been “very close” to getting through the auditions for the inaugural cast when SNL UK launched less than six months earlier, only to ultimately miss out.
Freddie Meredith joined the cast of SNL UK for season two
PA
The assembled team of performers and writers were found having cut their teeth playing the live comedy scene, and many would make their return to the Fringe this year with the newfound profile of Saturday night TV stars. Meanwhile, despite growing his name through roles in sitcoms including Such Brave Girls and on the London comedy circuit, Meredith remained a relative unknown to wider audiences as he took his show, Need a Light?, to the Pleasance Courtyard. This earned him a nomination for best newcomer in the prestigious Edinburgh Comedy Awards, and the SNL UK producers evidently saw something they needed to add to their existing roster.
Meredith recalls: “The last Friday of Edinburgh, two more shows to go, I was just having a drink when my agent gets a call. He comes over and says they want you to join the cast and ideally start on Tuesday.
“It really was out of the blue and a very bizarre, overwhelming feeling of being chosen.“
And so four days later he was starting work on the new job, being welcomed by a number of familiar faces - “apart from maybe George [Fouracres] and Larry [Dean], I think I've gigged with all of them” - and being thrown straight into the action.
Freddie Meredith on SNL UK’s celebrity guests
Jamie Demetriou
“He’s a hero of mine. Getting to do a couple of sketches that I'd written as well on that specific show felt really special to me because he's someone that I've always looked up to.
“He just makes everything so funny. The read through for that week was incredible because he just can just make anything work.”
Amelia Dimoldenberg
“Self-professed, she was like, ‘I'm not really an actor’ on day one, so you have a different approach to all the sketches.
“The one where I was doing the worm and she's coming on with massive feet - it’s insane sort of stuff.”
Danny Dyer
“Absolutely incredible. That one had a fun, iconic feeling to it. He just makes anything iconic.”
Rada-trained Meredith entered the world of performance through acting before taking to comedy. Those who have seen him live, such as at his semi-regular Groom of the Stool nights at MOTH Club in Hackney, will know he’s playing a character (more so than all comics are, to differing extents); he is charming, and indeed, endlessly charmed by, the audience who are playing it cooler than the almost manically try-hard geek staring back from the stage.
“We were laughing at it, saying ‘Why is it so funny? It's not meant to be funny!’”
While he professes to have never done sketch comedy before, he brings to the live arena more of an act-out of different routines than stand-up gag telling. Now on SNL he’s played everything from Volodymyr Zelensky to Olly Murs to an aroused mosquito. “I genuinely am up for whatever. I usually play the nervous, lower status, shy, unsure characters. That's the go-to thing.
“As an actor, first and foremost, it’s a dream. I've probably already played about 50 parts.”
As well as taking on whichever roles the script demands, he’s been able to bring his own pitches to the writing room and seen a number of those made it to the live shows.
“I came in with one idea which turned into the X Factor sketch. I just showed [fellow cast member] Jack Shep the 2011 X Factor opening of Telephone where it cuts to each one singing. We were laughing at it, saying ‘Why is it so funny? It's not meant to be funny!’ I thought, even if we just did that…”
“It involved a lot of choreography. We did it in the dress run and it kind of all went wrong. If one person misses their thing, it's a domino effect of it's going to fall apart. But it really just came together on the night, nobody put a foot wrong. I was just like, wow, I didn't expect that.”
The reception from the studio audience is the reward after walking the tightrope seeing whether a joke lives or dies on the night.
“Even my friends ask, ‘Is it actually live?’ You're just like, ‘Of course it's live. It's so live. It couldn't be more live”
“The vibes are incredible. There's something so fresh and exciting about the jeopardy of it all going wrong as well.
“It's funny how many people, even my friends, are like, ‘Is it actually live? Have you been rehearsing these sketches for ages?’ You're just like, ‘No, of course it's live. It's so live. It couldn't be more live. I think that gives the show its energy.”
Although some sketches are potentially enjoyed by far wider audiences once the clips are shared online, Meredith insists the “old school” TV format is crucial to the content working.
“There's something a bit more pure about it, which I think is a good thing. Consuming stuff through your phone - I don't know if everyone's loving that experience. Even as somebody who puts stuff online it's not very creatively satisfying. There's something about it that just doesn't scratch the itch.”
The fast-paced reality of each show going from inception to performance within five days means the team can never be sure just what the finished running order is going to look like come Saturday night - and which of the twelve regular cast members are going to feature more than others.
“I was thinking last week ‘oh I'm not in it too much’ and then suddenly you're in the cold open and then your Weekend Update thing gets picked and then they want you to play a little role in a sketch. Suddenly you're in four sketches.
“It all changes so quickly, you never know what's going to happen. You might be in three sketches and they all get cut just before the show. So it is luck of the draw a lot of the time and I've been quite lucky so far.”
Does he pay attention to the famous leaderboard of each cast member’s cumulative appearances across the series?
“It gets flashed to you occasionally and you're like, no, no, no, I can't be looking at that. It all kind of equals out so I think nobody really is too fussed about the leaderboard - that I've heard about as a new member…”
If you don’t want to know the scores, look away now…
Having been a leading light on TV screens, Meredith now gets to bring his own solo show to a wider audience, just as his SNL cast mates have done before him - with tickets flying out. “It’s the perfect kind of springboard. Even though a lot of the buzz came from before SNL, it feels like when you're booking in dates now, they're gone. It’s given so many people such a good platform.”
“I was expecting London audiences to be a bit judgy, but they haven’t been at all”
Need a Light? sees the on-stage Freddie Meredith character preparing for an epic night out - only to find himself without a crew in tow at the club and resorting to befriending members of the audience in the imagined smoking area. Disclaimer: This writer did find himself in the front row of the audience at one Fringe performance and inadvertently becoming Freddie’s friend for the night. We’ve all been there…
“He’s the guy you get stuck with at a party who is clearly quite sweet, but he's getting everything wrong. But you can't leave him because you feel a bit too bad, so you're going to stick around and see what he has to say. Hopefully he gets over the hill and comes up with something interesting that you can actually talk about. And also he's having a great night, so don't worry too much about it.”
Freddie Meredith was nominated for Edinburgh Comedy Awards best newcomer with his show Need a Light?
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How is he finding London crowds since he transferred the show from the Edinburgh Fringe to Soho Theatre?
“Not that different to be honest. I was expecting it to be a bit more arms folded, not that festival kind of spirit. Maybe judgy? London audiences are a bit more like ‘Come on, is this actually as good as everyone's been saying?’ And they haven't been at all, they've been so nice.
“The thing about the show luckily is that whatever happens, kind of works with the character. He just has to try and navigate them and get through to them.”
Whether that’s on stage or on Saturday night TV, Freddie Meredith’s proving he can indeed get through to his audience. Take it from Jeff Goldblum: you're gonna love this guy.
Video by Madelaine Dowds
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