James Austin Johnson brought Donald Trump to Saturday Night Live UK for the show’s first Trump appearance, doing it in a cold open that put Andy Burnham and Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the same stage. The episode also made the case that this was not just another impersonation slot: it was the first time Trump had actually shown up on the UK version of the show.
James Austin Johnson and the Trump slot
For five years, Johnson has been playing Trump on SNL after replacing Alec Baldwin, so the move into SNL UK was less a one-off cameo than an export of a proven format. Trump’s entrance came after Burnham, played by George Fouracres, said, “I will raise with Trump at the first opportunity.”
Once Trump arrived, he answered the setup with, “You say my name and I appear.” That line did the work of the scene quickly: SNL UK had referenced Trump plenty before, but had never put him in the room until this episode.
Andy Burnham and Volodymyr Zelenskyy
The cold open kept its cast tight around the Trump reveal. Burnham and Zelenskyy, played by Freddie Meredith, were already in motion when Trump began unloading lines about how he had gotten the idea from “my very close friend Beetlejuice, the great Beetlejuice.” He then added, “It’s one of the two reasons I like him. The other is that he’s a sex pest… It’s alleged, they can’t prove that stuff.”
Trump also offered Burnham a job swap and called being President of the U.S. “an awful job” in “a terrible place full of disgusting people.” He then widened the bit to British politics and culture, taking aim at Manchester City, the small boats crisis and the recent mauling to death of a man by a tiger.
Why the first Trump appearance landed now
Trump went after British comedy itself too, saying it was in a “bad situation” because SNL UK “doesn’t have anyone who can play Trump.” That is the joke’s built-in contradiction: Johnson is already there, and he has already spent five years making the impression part of the SNL machinery.
James Norton hosted the fifth episode of the first half of Season 2, with music from The Streets, and next week that run will conclude with Cynthia Erivo. The practical takeaway is simple: SNL UK has now crossed its own Trump line, and it did so by importing the version Johnson had already made work on SNL rather than inventing a new one from scratch.
