Maia Tassalini's comedy favourites

Edinburgh Fringe comedian Maia Tassalini picks her Perfect Playlist of comedy favourites… t

1. Jacqueline Novak: Get On Your Knees 

I'm not one of those comedians who discovered Stewart Lee at 14 and immediately became a lifelong stand-up obsessive. I came to comedy backwards, as a funny person looking for somewhere to put all that energy, rather than in love with the form itself. That completely changed when I saw Get On Your Knees. 

Jacqueline Novak's shameless poeticism, camp lofty intellect and breathtaking imagery completely rearranged my understanding of what stand-up could be. In a world where I (and a lot of women in comedy) are still told to be ‘more likeable’, watching her hold an audience while refusing to sand down a single sharp edge was electrifying. 

She writes with an ambition that's almost indecent. Seeing that made me feel far less interested in being palatable and much more interested in trying to make something brilliant. When I know stand-up can be this good, it makes it worth trying. 

2. Liza Minnelli Proves She Can Still Sing, TMZ 

Liza! She’s a relentless entertainer, a showgirl, one of the last true broads - and those eyes! She’s all sequins and jazz hands, and I think she’s the best of what showbiz can be. 

This video of her singing Day-O to a paparazzo from the back of a car because she wants to prove she can still sing is, to my mind, one of the defining cultural artefacts of the 21st century. It always gets wheeled out during the ‘let's all watch YouTube videos’ part of the evening and it hits just as hard every single time. 

3. Kate Berlant and John Early 

These girls have an absolute chokehold on me and pretty much everyone I know. I first came to John Early through Search Party, one of my favourite (and criminally underrated) shows of all time. Through that I found his work with Kate Berlant, a woman whose facial expressions are proof of god’s existence. Separately. they are two beacons of light, but together they are the whole lighthouse. 

They understand, above everything, that embarrassment is theatrical. Nobody captures the unbearable performance of being a person quite like Kate and John. Every tiny hesitation, every over-correction, every failed attempt of coolness is stretched until it becomes operatic. 

4. The Real Housewives of New York 

Now this to me, is cinema. At this point I think we all know that being snobby about reality television is one of the least attractive qualities a person can possess. It’s an unfortunate taste defect and I promise you no one thinks you’re an intellectual. 

The Real Housewives of New York contains everything I want from art: delusion, status anxiety, rival prosecco lines and beautiful women behaving monstrously over nothing. It's Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? if everyone had veneers and were perfect quote machines. 

I think my comedy owes everything to those women. They're all performing heightened versions of themselves, desperately trying to control the narrative while the audience can see every crack. That's stand-up, baby! 

5. 30 Rock 

No big deal, just the most perfect TV show ever created. Tina Fey, the woman that you are! The laugh rate of 30 Rock is so staggering that I genuinely don’t think you can really say you’ve seen it until at least your 17th viewing. 

The dynamic between Liz and Jack is the ultimate comedy engine, and every character is a hall of famer, but Tracey Jordan is one of the best characters ever created in culture. ‘Stop eating people's old French fries, pigeon. Have some self respect! Don't you know you can fly?’ 

6. I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron 

I Feel Bad About My Neck is probably the book I recommend to my friends more than any other. I’ve had to re-buy so, so many copies because I keep shoving it in the hands of people who come to my house. 

Nora Ephron is a bit of a North Star to me. She had this extraordinary ability to begin with something as apparently inconsequential as a bad haircut or a crepey neck and end up saying something so profound about vanity, feminism, mortality and the indignity of having a body at all that it made you weep (and really, really laugh). 

What I love about all of her work, whether it's I Feel Bad About My Neck, Heartburn, or When Harry Met Sally, is that she never apologises for caring about things that are traditionally dismissed as ‘women's stuff’. She knew that the human condition was just as often glimpsed through moisturiser, handbags, a break-up or the perfect salad dressing. She made domestic life feel cinematic and ordinary women feel mythic. 

Every time I read her, I'm reminded that the smallest observation can open up into something enormous if you're willing to follow it. 

• Maia Tassalini: I Was 22 and Stunning is on at 6pm at Pleasance Courtyard 

Published: 13 Aug 2026