Edy Hurst picks his Perfect Playlist of comedy favourites.

Edy Hurst is performing his Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Himself at The Lowry in Salford this Halloween before a short UK tour. Here he shares his Perfect Playlist:

Steve Martin: Wild And Crazy Guy

Look I know that this has probably turned up on nearly every list of influential comedians, but I’m going to start with Wild And Crazy Guy by musical comedian/absurdist/stadium filler Steve Martin.

Currently he’s probably best known as one third of Only Murders In The Building, that TV show about true crime podcasters who end up embroiled in true crime (but the good one). Way before his comedy renaissance he was creating masterful meta-comedy, a parody of light entertainment showmen that ironically became more popular than the real thing.

His book Born Standing Up is a real must for people wanting to see what it’s like as a performer who spent years on the road before heading into TV, films, and some surprisingly heavyweight academic essays, but for the pinnacle of his powers as a stand up, Wild And Crazy Guy is a must.

I love how he plays an obvious character, and yet at no point tells an audience that it’s a character, and that’s something I’ve taken as a performer. As well as his willingness to bring music, magic and any other skills knocking around into his work. He’s never happy with just being great, which he is, but getting to join him in exploring the limits of our expectation of performance, and to show that audiences wanted to see that, was a huge influence on me.

Mystery Science Theatre 3000

Mystery Science Theatre 3000 is one of those shows that I think you have to have a friend show you at 1am. It must have existed on the word of mouth of someone describing it as if they had a weird dream.

‘It’s a show where they play old sci-fi and PSA movies and make jokes over them. But it’s a guy trapped on a spaceship by an evil scientist and two robot friends he made out of parts he could have used to get back to Eaarth. At least I think it was.’

It’s a much-imitated format (the first bit at least) and one that is deceptively hard to really nail, because you need to make enough fun of the show for the jokes, but also not be so critical as to make the audience think ‘yeah this is bad, you’re right, let’s stop watching it’.

Parody, like musical comedy, can often be a maligned form of comedy, because the balance is so slight that when it’s bad, it’s really bad, but when it’s good, it’s magnificent. This is something I wasn’t directly aware of at the time, but I think the playful ribbing of sci-fi undoubtedly played a part in my previous show Edy Hurst’s Comedy Version of Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of H.G. Wells’ Literary Version (Via Orson Welles’ Radio Version and Steve Spielberg’s Film Version) of the War of the Worlds.

I ask you to watch Puma-man with commentary by a man and two robots and not get swept up in the waves of silly jokes, all whilst never interrupting the film fully.

Maria Bamford: ‘Stop hiding behind that Jimi Hendrix font’

Where Steve Martin is a master of craft, exploring the mechanics and philosophy of performance, Maria Bamford takes those lessons and uses them to dissect and explore her lived experience in a way that destigmatises and enlightens, but first and foremost is funny and entertaining.

While she has incredibly concise and hilarious descriptions of life with mental illness, she can just be completely daft with laser-focussed observations.

The Special Special Special is a special that she performs in her living room to only her parents, which I think for many comedians is at least one show they’ve all had at the Edinburgh Fringe but with an optimistically renovated chair store instead of a living room.

A truly incredible line of ‘stop hiding behind that Jimi Hendrix font’ is one of those phrases that you’ll carry around your head forevermore when you walk past a church putting on a rock show for teenagers.

Ghosts

My new show, Edy Hurst’s Wonderfull Discoverie Of Witches In The Countie of Himself, is all about, would you believe it, witches (and also the Vengaboys). One of the things I’ve become really aware of over the course of creating it is how we treat the representation of supernatural figures in pop culture.

Often we end up dehumanising a lot of them in order for them to serve a narrative purpose, which I think, particularly when there are numerous well-documented cases of people being put on trial for witchcraft, becomes pretty disrespectful.

What I love about Ghosts, as well as being very funny and having a cast of the greatest British comedy actors of their generation, is that they never shy away from treating the ghostly characters with the dignity of their reality. 

These are people who lived and now cannot die, living in a world they once shaped but now are doomed to watch change around them. It gives the show so much more poignancy between the fun sitcom setups and allows us to further relate to characters that could have been one-note jokes, and Happy Death Day from series 1 is a masterpiece.

The Eric Andre Show

A lot of people talk about comedians being ‘fearless’ and for the most part I think that’s a load of shit, but for Eric Andre I genuinely don’t think there’s anything he wouldn’t do if he thought it would be funny.

Listen to his stand-up and you’ll see a tight set of intense, fast punchlines, but The Eric Andre Show is so strong it’s like drinking a shot of marmite. Sometimes guests are completely taken by surprise, other times they break down laughing, but the show is never positioned to make fun of them, the punchline is squarely aimed on the insane world that Eric has made for himself.

I’ve put the clip of when the late Lance Reddick appeared on the show, because I just love that there’s this matching of Andre’s energy that shows while t it appears a prank show it’s at its best not when tricking someone, but when they invite the guest to be sucked into the orbit of a different reality for a brief moment in time.

Frank Sidebottom

I live in the town next door to Timperley, and Frank Sidebottom is an almost mythical figure that exists in the area. Not only is there a brass statue commemorating him outside a Costa Coffee, but wearing a Frank t-shirt around the area you will nearly always hear a story of someone who watched a man with a papier mâché head walking down the road with a camera, or who’s dad once had a friend who was friends with Frank’s alter ego, Chris Seivey.

A character, musician, puppeteer (but with a handheld version of himself called little Frank) that invites you into his small world of gigantic ideas. It’s easy to see how his worldview fitted so well with Caroline Aherne, who performed as Mrs. Merton on some of the records, reflecting life living in the NorthWest of England, but coupled with the unbridled lo-fi imagination of an indie rock-star who returned home.

Frank’s work is vast and varied, and often I think the silliness on the surface belies his wide-ranging talents and sheer productivity. He’s like The Fall of comedy.

Comprising homemade comics, films, local TV shows and countless records, to really enjoy Frank it’s like getting to take a seat on his settee and seeing what you were lucky enough to be shown that day.

I’ve put his version of Radio Gaga below, because he would put a fake moustache on when he performed it, that he says ‘gaga’ in the funniest ways possible, and the image of going to a pub or social club one afternoon and rather than a local band you saw a bloke with a big head, with a little version of himself in his hand and a suit so you know he’s taking it seriously, set up and start something that at no point does he treat it as anything other than his reality.

Honourable mentions

What We Do In The Shadows (TV series): A very daft show about vampires in New Jersey that is a wonderful mix of British, New Zealand and American comedic sensibility.

Victor Borge: Danish musical comedian who performed from the 30s to 00s in a comedic meta-subversion of the pomposity of classical music, from someone skilled enough to exist in both worlds.

The Muppets At Walt  Disney World: It’s got Michael Eisner talking to Fozzy Bear and Miss Piggy has big eyes on a rollercoaster. Flawless.

• Edy Hurst's Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Himself will be at The Lowry in Salford on Thursday (Halloween) and Friday, and at the Camden People’s Theatre in London on Demceber 12 and 13, with a few more UK dates in 2025. Edy Hurst tour dates.

Published: 29 Oct 2024