Tommy Tiernan has told GB News that he doesn't believe comedians should be 'hung, drawn and quartered' for 'making a mistake' on stage.
The Irish comedian was speaking to Andrew Doyle on the Free Speech podcast, with a variety of topics discussed.
One of these was the issue of a "risky" joke being told, with host Andrew explaining that he had once gone to a show where an unnamed comedian had picked on a group of wheelchair users as part of his set.
Tommy had his own views, telling the host: "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.
"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."
Tommy 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. It 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."
It comes as Jimmy Carr faces heavy criticism from the Travelling community for a joke about the Holocaust in his latest Netflix special.
The UK comedian is under fire after he joked about the horror of “six million Jewish lives being lost” before suggesting the deaths of “the thousands of Gypsies” at the hands of the Nazis had been one of “the positives” of the Holocaust during Netflix special, His Dark Material.
