'So simple, so strange'

Ellen Turnill Montoya shares her Perfect Playlist of comedy favourites

Ellen Turnill Montoya - who is performing her absurd comedy character Mr Handsome at the Edinburgh Fringe – picks her favourite comedy moments.

The Muppet Show: The Windmills of Your Mind

I can’t remember a time without The Muppets in my life, from starting in Sesame Street to Fraggle Rock to consuming endless moments from The Muppet Show.

Recent years have seen them move away from the independent spirit of Jim Henson, and I find myself going back to the original 1970s series, and specifically the wild and varied monsters that make one-off appearances in surreal skits.

Here is a particular favourite – so simple, so strange. It shows a creature named Screaming Thing singing The Windmills Of Your Mind from 1968 film The Thomas Crown Affair – getting progressively faster and more freaked out as it goes on.

Sarah Squirm on SNL: Meatballs

The first time I saw Sarah Squirm was deep in lockdown, and through a screen a colourful bolt of energy completely distracted me from the social-distancing-inside life we were all experiencing.

A comedic voice so off-the-wall and gross, yet charming and endearing was not something I had seen before - and I was hooked. Her short… film? special? The Sarah Vaccine created for Means TV introduced me to this act with a vibrant and un-look-away-able visual world of delight and disgust.

When I found out she was joining the cast of SNL I was thrilled, and she’s been incredible at translating her unique voice to sketches and characters on the show.

Here I share Meatballs, which includes everything you could want in (around) 4 minutes. Meatball growths, catchy tunes, surreal animation, and of course, Charli XCX.

The Armando Iannucci Shows: Paper House Sketch

If you haven’t seen The Armando Iannucci Shows, stop right now and get started. It is such a beautiful sketch show, created by one of our most brilliant comedic minds, a few years before we’d even heard our first Malcolm Tucker rant.

The show really does feel like a peek into a singular brain and point of view, which is rare from the sketch format. Odd wordings, uncomfortable situations, and everyday musings brought to life.

A particular favourite is Paper House Sketch. I have nothing more to say than: ‘It’s made of paper’ (which, also working in design, is a phrase I’ve had the pleasure of saying a lot to secretly amuse myself)

Los Espookys

I can’t remember the first time I encountered Julio Torres. Maybe it was My Favourite Shapes in an Edinburgh cave. Maybe it was surreal sketches on SNL. Maybe it was a gig in a basement in New York with Ana Fabrega and River L. Ramirez my friend took me to - but somewhere my obsession with Julio Torres and this collection of incredible Latine talent was born.

Los Espookys is a series created by Torres, Fabrega, and Fred Armisen, where the dialogue is delivered in ‘Spanglish’ When there is Spanish dialogue you see English subtitles, and vice versa.

I’m half British and half Mexican and grew up in my own Spanglish world alongside the two sides of my family. To see Spanglishness translated into a TV show, and a beautiful and surreal comedy one at that - I’ve never felt like something was so made for me, and there’s not a lot of comedy that has ever struck that feeling. Please let’s make some more. (I also just love that they called it Los Espookys. It’s so perfect.)

Big Train: Stare Out Championships

The BBC recently played the first episode of Big Train, originally aired in 1998, and this sketch still stands out so strongly. It was animated by the incredible Chris Shepherd, based on a comic book by Paul Hatcher and brings to (minimal) life a series of Stare Out Championships across a series of characters.

The stillness, the silliness, the commitment to an idea to the maximum. Perfection.