Emma’s standup routine shows laughter can be the best medicine

Being handed a diagnosis of lethal cancer together with the promise that it will radically shorten your life rarely provokes — in the person hearing the deadly prognosis — the desire to be funny.

Not only do most people not want to be funny in that situation, but they sure as hell don’t want to be publicly funny.

Emma Mhic Mhathúna is the exception. On Friday night, she stood up in the Laughter Lounge in Dublin in her first venture into stand-up comedy, which saw her deliver 15 minutes of comic commentary, including an account of a mishap she experienced when working with an RTÉ film crew.