Stuart Goldsmith's picks his Perfect Playlist of comedy favourites

As Stuart Goldsmith releases his new special I Need You Alive today, the stand-up and Comedians’ Comedian podcast host shares his Perfect Playlist of comedy favourites.

Lenny Henry: Lenny, Live and Unleashed

My first great stand-up love. I listened to this cassette tape over and over again on an extremely lonely school trip, and it first alerted me to the existence of stand-up comedy.

I can still recite huge swathes of it, from the bad jokes/shaggy dog story song at the top, to the Trevor Nettleford rant about catflaps, to Lowdown Dirty Fingerlickin' Hounddog Smith. It's a masterpiece and totally holds up today.

Patton Oswalt: Werewolves and Lollipops

This was a real moment for me, as it turned me on to what you could do with detail and finesse and incredible joke density and most importantly talking about the things you care about the most, and managing to find something universally relevant in them.

His stuff about you only being allowed a certain number of birthdays in your life, or the Cirque Du Soleil routine, or the reason why the Star Wars prequels didn't work, or just meeting fellow character actor Brian Dennehy coming the other way round the buffet, it's all killer no filler. He remains my favourite comic.

The Wrestling at the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe

I've spent nearly 30 years going to the Edinburgh festival, not missing a single one in that time, even 2020 where we just sat and drank some cans on the steps by Bristo Square and watched the skateboarders. In that time I've had my brain melted by so many wonderful concoctions of comic insanity, from The Dark Room, to David Correos physically inflating himself, to Elf Lyons doing a ballet with no ballet in it.

But The Wrestling for me typifies the heroism involved in making the impossible manifest. (It was a close call between this and Joseph Morpurgo's Benjamin Zephaniah-style beat poem performed in a ghillie suit made of tin foil, in character as the static in between the video clips he was bringing to life. But The Wrestling edges it because everyone told me afterwards that I'd done a backflip and I just don't think I did.)

Sam Jay at SXSW Austin Texas, 2019

I've just never seen anyone murder a room as hard as she did, before or since.

Aaron Chen, Melbourne International Comedy Festival, 2016(?)

As a riotous display of what's possible if you're already bored of all the comedy rules as a teenager, this show blew my head off. I don't remember much of it as I was absolutely shrieking with laughter; just that it opened with a karaoke section where we had to join in with the responses to the ‘crowd work’.

Aaron has such an innate understanding of what's funny, and his web series A Life In Questions is a great jumping off-point if you're in the mood for a YouTube rabbit hole.

Sara Barron: Hard Feelings, 2017

This was the first time I'd seen Sara, and I was dazzled by how invisible her writing was. She's an incredible joke and show writer, but often with incredible writers you notice the writing, with her it's just this perfect synergy of her personality, her jokes, her attitude and the through-line of the show. She's just infinitely watchable, I didn't check my watch once and for my busy brain that's saying something.

My six-year-old at Camp Bestival 2022

I mean, come on. It was the best. It was his third or fourth time on stage and he looked tiny on it. He did ten of his own one-liners to 400 people. He wouldn't let me tweak or edit a single joke, all his own work, and he smashed it.

The first two gags had several well-meaning parents supportively going ‘Waaay’ at the end, but by the third one they'd shut up because they were laughing for real.

Afterwards, he was festival famous for the rest of the day, and a nice lady came up and asked him what he was thinking as he walked off stage.

He said: 'I thought - that's done now, I can get on with the rest of my day.' What a pro.

• Stuart Goldsmith's stand-up special I Need You Alive is out now via on demand platform Moment here. He is also set to bring a new show to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August.

Published: 23 Feb 2023