Emma Thompson compares difference between male and female comedy to orgasms

Emma Thompson has had such a magnificent career as an actress and writer, that you might forget that Thompson began her entertainment life in the UK as a stand-up comedian.

She was the first woman to join the heralded Cambridge Footlights, the comedy troupe whose membership at the time included Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie. In 1981, the Footlights won the award for best show at that year’s Edinburgh Fringe. She’d go on to do multiple sketch series on British telly before we began to see her in America, predominately in dramatic movies and period pieces.

Describing her comedy the other night to Stephen Colbert, Thompson cracked that not only did she never really tell jokes, proper, but that men and women approach comedy differently. Think of it like orgasms. Now you get it?

In that clip, Thompson said what her typical comedy of the day consisted of, and here’s a sketch from 1985 that proves that exactly…

Sean L. McCarthy

Editor and publisher since 2007, when he was named New York's Funniest Reporter. Former newspaper reporter at the New York Daily News, Boston Herald and smaller dailies and community papers across America. Loves comedy so much he founded this site.

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