The Guide #235: Live from London, it’s Saturday Night! But will SNL translate transatlantically?

This weekend, after the longest hyping up period for a British comedy in ages, Saturday Night Live UK finally launches on Sky. It arrives with a degree of divisiveness that most shows don’t usually attain until at least a few episodes in, with some people willing it on, others are convinced that it will fail. Already there’s been a note of pre-emptive schadenfreude online, with every last piece of promotional material – even a fairly innocuous advert with the letters S N and L spelt out in baked beans – pounced on as evidence that the show will be a complete bin fire.And maybe it will. I’m hopeful that SNL UK will prove better than many expect: there are some good young comics attached; some shrewd people behind the scenes (it’s heartening to see a couple of members of the great sketch group Sheeps on the writing staff); and the steely presence of original SNL creator Lorne Michaels, keeping an eye on things as exec producer

From Project Hail Mary to Saturday Night Live UK: your complete entertainment guide to the week ahead

Scientist Ryan Gosling is alone in deep space – or is he? – and America’s famed topical satire is given a British angleProject Hail MaryOut now Novelist Andy Weir’s brand of comic, semi-plausible sci-fi led to Ridley Scott’s The Martian – now Phil Lord and Christopher Miller will be hoping to repeat something of the same success. Ryan Gosling is the lead of a caper in which a science teacher wakes up on a spaceship on a desperate mission in deep space.La GraziaOut now Italian star Toni Servillo reunites with director Paolo Sorrentino for another collaboration exploring conflicts between personal freedom and public obligations. This time, an Italian president must navigate various moral dilemmas, including potentially pardoning two murderers.Broken EnglishOut now Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard’s documentary about Marianne Faithfull eschews convention to explore its topic through devices including the Ministry of Not Forgetting – an imaginary space where actual memories can collide with myth-making

‘A fascinating discovery’: research challenges Battle of Hastings narrative

It is a story that has been taught to generations of British schoolchildren about one of the most famous and pivotal events in the country’s history.The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more.In September 1066, as a Norman duke called William prepared to sail from France to claim the English throne, King Harold of England discovered the Viking leader Harald Hardrada had landed in Yorkshire with an army of his own

Driven to the right side of the road? | Brief letters

From the answer to question five of The kids’ quiz (14 March), we learn that people in Britain drive on the left-hand side of the road to keep their right hand free for sword fighting. Does that mean that just about everywhere else in the world people drive on the right-hand side of the road to keep their left hand free for shield wielding?Simon ChapmanMarseille, France In the Saturday quiz (14 March), Glengarry Glen Ross is named as one of four “films with no female characters”. In fact the film does credit “Coat check girl”, played by Lori Tan Chinn, who delivers the immortal line: “Slow tonight.”Rendel HarrisLondon On children fibbing (Letters, 19 March), my brother, the late Tom Hibbert (of Smash Hits, Q magazine and Observer fame), showed early promise of invention when asked by our mother how a large tear in his trousers had appeared. He replied rather scornfully: “Haven’t you heard of moths what eat holes in people’s clothes?”Jimmy Hibbert Porthmadog, Gwynedd Somebody should advise Robin, who said he was looking for someone 5ft 6in tall, what my father once said to me (Blind date, 14 March)

Jimmy Kimmel on Trump Pearl Harbor joke: ‘Everything he knows about it begins and ends with the Ben Affleck movie’

With The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on hiatus until at least 27 March, late-night hosts on Thursday discussed Donald Trump’s snafu while meeting Japan’s prime minister, his caginess over Iran, and new findings in the Epstein investigations.On Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the host discussed Trump meeting with Sanae Takaichi at the White House. As a welcome gift, the Japanese prime minister presented the US president with 250 cherry trees to commemorate the upcoming 250th US anniversary.“This is a guy who paved over the Rose Garden,” commented Kimmel. “What is he going to do with 250 cherry trees? He’ll probably use them to build a Waffle House or something

A bust of Barbra Streisand and beautiful memories: Richard E Grant’s garden – in seven extraordinary items

The actor has played many classic roles and his love of film is clear in his garden, from the Saltburn proscenium arch to the pergola where Meryl Streep and Paul Rudd have partied the night away Step into Richard E Grant’s garden in Richmond, London, and you’ll be met with a rather unconventional sight. Instead of the daffodils and tulips you’d usually find in an English garden at this time of year, Grant’s space is full of props and decorations from the films he’s starred in – from Saltburn to Carrie Cracknell’s 2022 adaptation of Persuasion.After any job, he says, “I go to the production department and try and buy or bribe my way” to get pieces to put in his garden. The space has, until now, been a private spot for Grant to entertain his actor friends. But now he has shared it with the world as part of the Royal Horticultural Society’s new podcast, Roots