Saturday Night Live Arabia to return early next year with loads of surprises

Co-hosts Shadi Alfons and Khalid Mansour tell us about some of the challenges they face and what is in store when the comedy returns on OSN with its third season early next year.

The team behind the Arabic version of Saturday Night Live have been working hard to retain the originality of the US satirical show. OSN via AP Photo

The second season of Saturday Night Live Arabia has just finished its run on OSN Yahala, but fans of the topical, regional comedy will not be without their weekly fix of topical satire for long. The show will be back before you know it, according to co-hosts, Shadi Alfons and Khalid Mansour.

“We’ll be back on OSN early next year,” says Mansour. “We have lots of surprises, lots of new sketches and lots of recurring sketches, new characters, spin-off characters, we’ll be building new sketches around characters from old sketches.

"We're revamping the news update, working in some funny new characters, Shaddi's working on a sequel for Zizo, the [online] hit song – the whole team is working really hard."

SNL Arabia is, of course, based on the long-running United States comedy sketch show from which it takes its name. Since it began in 1975, it has helped launch the careers of comedy giants including John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, Mike Myers and Tina Fey.

“It’s unfathomable, to be a part of something so huge, for someone that’s grown up watching and admiring the institution from which most of the world’s well-known comedians have come,” says Mansour. “It’s beyond an honour, it’s the highlight of my career.”

The team behind the Arabian version were keen to retain as much of the feel of the original show as possible. To that end they got first-hand experience of observing the US version.

“Before we started making the show we went to the set of the US show, and we went literally everywhere,” says Alfons.

“We were with the crew, the cast, in the editing suite, in the wardrobe – really, we were everywhere. We were basically understudying, shadowing the whole team so we could bring it back and do the same thing here.”

Mansour acknowledges, however, that there are limits to the similarities between the two versions of the show. The US original is renowned for lampooning leading political figures – most recently igniting a Twitter war with US president-elect Donald Trump.

Mansour admits the region is not quite ready for that level of edgy satire.

“There are some difficulties, of course,” he says. “We try to overcome the difficulties and adapt the platform to the Arab culture. We’re trying our best.

“Personally speaking, I always want to know where that line is, just so I can cross it with my toes. You have to know where that line is, because if you cross it with any more than your toes, you get your foot cut off – but I just keep dabbling and trying to push that envelope, keeping it original, keeping it smart.

"Of course, a lot of comedy is about politics, religion or sex, and that can be difficult in this region, but there is a form of smart comedy that can avoid those subjects and is still funny. It's rare but it's doable, and that's what we try to do, just try to keep to that formula." Mansour and Alfons graduated from the writing team of Bassam Youssef's hugely popular TV satire show Al Bernameg, and while they have fond memories of their time their, they say SNL is a whole new level.

“With Bassam, we were only talking about politics but this is so much bigger,” says Mansour. “There is politics, there is news, there is social satire, but we’re basically trying to cover everything about the whole Arab way of life. It’s just so much bigger. We have big stars coming on the show. I could go on and on.”

Alfons agrees, adding: "Bernameg was a great stepping stone for us as actors and comedians, but SNL is just so much bigger. Bernameg was basically just political satire, but with this, every sketch is different. I love that variety and we try to keep everything different to the sketch before."

Youssef is perhaps the Arab world's best-known satirist, thanks to his own show and appearances on The Daily Show with John Stewart. He would have seemed a logical choice to host SNL Arabia when it launched this year.

Alfons says he would love to see Youssef return from the US to join the team, even temporarily.

“We’d love to get Bassam Youssef in to host an episode, he says. “He’d do a great job. You’ll have to take it up with our executive producer, but he’s doing an equally great job of hiding at the moment.”

Executive producer Tarek El Ganainy dodged the question of an appearance by Youssef, but he showed a nice line in funny quips of his own while confirming the new season of the show.

"Yes, SNL itself will be back for season three next year," he says. "As for these two muppets, I'm not so sure."