Molly McGuinness picks her Perfect Playlist of comedy favourites

Former BBC New Comedy Award finalist Molly McGuinness is at the Edinburgh Fringe with her debut show, Slob. Here she picks her favourite comedy moments.

Neil Hamburger: Hot February Nights

The greatest comedy album of all time. It’s a recording from when he opened for Tenacious D during their prime and the audience absolutely hate him. It’s amazing. 

Listening to him completely derail and wind them up to pure anger is perfection and music to my ears. Every Neil album is more than just comedy, it’s art. I love the way he plays with sound and tension.

Neil is not only America’s funnyman, he’s the worldwide funnyman. Nobody competes.

On Cinema

If you’re not subscribed to the HEI Network then you don’t even like comedy… or cinema. The insane amount of lore in this Siskel and Ebert parody is genius. The Oscar specials are better than the actual Oscars. Tim Heidecker and Gregg Turkington are my comedy heroes and made me realise you really can create whatever the hell you want. They are punk! This gets five bags of popcorn.

Polyester: John Waters

The king of filth is also the king of comedy. I love all John Waters films but I’d say Polyesteris my favourite. A melodrama parody starring Divine as Francine Fishpaw. Her daughter hates her, her son has a foot-stomping fetish and her husband is cheating on  her.

The only person she has is her rich friend Bubbles, played by the incredible Edith Massey. She really was so brilliant and such an oddball character. Plus gay icon Tab Hunter as the naughty love interest. 

The DVD came with a scratch-n-sniff card that includes the smell of glue and faeces. If only we could get one of those for every film!

The Royle Family

Caroline Aherne is why I got into comedy in the first place. I loved everything she did, but The Royle Family particularly means so much to me. They feel like my second family that I look forward to spending every Christmas with. 

She portrayed a northern working-class family with so much love and warmth and without any patronising doom and gloom. So many great moments but my personal favourite is when Barb offers Twiggy Sunday dinner and he says: ‘You know me Barb, I’ll eat any old shite.’

Tom Green’s Subway Monkey Hour

I bought this on a whim from CeX as a teenager and it changed my life forever.

Tom Greengoes to Japan and acts mental basically. He is completely disruptive and mostly screaming nonsense but I love it so much and so many quotes are constantly looping in my head like ‘Why don’t you have anything to drink? Choose one making you better feeling.’

 He’s so loud and obnoxious which usually I hate but I’m fully on board with this, it’s like Dick and Dom’s bogies but Canadian. To be honest, I think this show turned me into a complete twat as a teenager and maybe still a bit now.

Jackass 3

I don’t think I’ve ever laughed as hard as watching Jackass 3D in the cinema. Sick, poo anddildos in 3D what more could you  want?! My favourite was the sweat cocktail. 

Also as gross as it is, there’s also a lot of heart and love between them. I wanted to be in Jackass so bad. Actually this is my call out. I will go on Jackass but I won’t do anything painful or scary, just the gross stuff!

• Molly McGuinness: Slob is on at Monkey Barrel’s Cabaret Voltaire venue at 2.55pm during the Edinburgh Fringe.

Published: 15 Aug 2025