The Derry Girls actor told Free Speech Nation: The Podcast comedians shouldn't be 'hounded out of their job' for telling unfunny jokes, before critics spoke out about Jimmy Carr's Netflix special
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In the latest episode of Free Speech Nation: The Podcast, Irish comedian Tommy Tiernan told Andrew Doyle for GB News that he doesn't believe comedians should be "hounded out of their job" for making a "mistake" onstage.
The chat show host and actor said: "If somebody gets up onstage and tells a joke and on further reflection that joke's actually coming from not such a good place, then just stop telling it and move on, than be hung drawn and quartered in the virtual town square."
Following the recording English stand-up Jimmy Carr has received criticism for a joke he made about the murder of gypsies during World War Two.
In a viral clip from the Netflix Special, entitled His Dark Material, Carr made a jibe about the Holocaust and “six million Jewish lives being lost”.
As a punchline, the 49-year-old then made a disparaging remark about the deaths of thousands of Gypsies under Nazi rule.
He said: "When people talk about the Holocaust, they talk about the tragedy and horror of six million Jewish lives being lost to the Nazi war machine. But they never mention the thousands of Gypsies that were killed by the Nazis. No one ever talks about that because no one wants to talk about the positives."
Carr has appeared on TV shows with Tommy Tiernan in the UK, including on As Yet Untitled, hosted by stand-up Alan Davies.
Tiernan told Free Speech Nation: The Podcast "...something is either funny or it's not."
He went on: "It can be about race, it can be about gender, it can be about the Olympics or Putin or doughnuts or lesbians or mermaids. If it's funny, it's funny.
"And if people don't find it funny, then that's all it is, it's just an unfunny moment.
"I walk on a stand-up stage to free myself from autocracy. I trust laughter and I also trust the humanity of the people involved that if somebody makes a mistake it's okay.
The host of The Tommy Tiernan show continued: "You follow the laughter and that can take you to odd strange places.
"I think laughter is an outlaw. Laughter isn't the Mayor. Laughter is the weird, wild woman who lives in a tree four miles outside the town.
"So I really would be very very slow to adopt a manifesto for stand-up.
Tiernan, who starts the UK leg of his Tomfoolery tour on March 17th, also told Andrew Doyle, stand-up "is a thing of on the one hand being free, free to do whatever comes into your mind on the stage whatever you and the audience find funny, with also kind of an examination of your own generosity maybe.
"It's that thing of being irresponsible, so people who are touting responsibility will find that upsetting.
