It's Only a Couple of Inches.

Men are taller than women. That is what my recent study has revealed.

Since the Edinburgh Fringe ended I have found myself with time on my hands. Like, loads of it. So I thought I would look on Chortle, a sort of website, to read through their reviews. I read every single one of them twice and then started to put them into categories: tall women, tall men, groups of tall women, groups of tall men, average height women, etc. My findings will stun the comedy community, hopefully, into complete silence.

I remember when I started doing comedy. Back then a lot of women weren't booked because they simply weren't tall enough to be seen by audiences. You could feel the audience go flat as soon as a female comic was introduced because they didn't want to spend the next 20 minutes looking over the heads of people in front of them just to see an act. Besides, they had a lot of talking to do. So a lot of female comedians went ignored. It wasn't until 2002 that someone invented what is now known as a stage.

When the stage came along suddenly female comics were raised slightly and audiences could see them and the female comics who were good got respect and laughs. It was almost as if they were as tall as men (which they aren't). These female comics then encouraged other women to take to the stage and perform comedy. Women such as Lucy Porter, Shappi Khorsandi, Josie Long, Francesca Martinez, Isy Suttie, Joanna Neary and Kitty Flanagan were soon joined by the likes of Sara Pascoe, Holly Walsh, Kerry Godliman, Sadie Hasler, Danielle Ward, Bridget Christie, Margaret Cabourn-Smith, Zoe Gardner, Caroline Mabey, Juliet Myers, Lady Carol, Tiffany Stevenson, Nat Luurtseema, Roisin Conaty, Diane Morgan and many, many more. Looking at these women on stage you could now almost imagine them as tall, if not even taller, than male comedians such as James Corden, Ben Elton, Kevin Bishop, David fucking prick Walliams, Michael M...oh, do I have to go on? I feel sick. Yet these short arsed men, these tiny insects next to giants, get on telly all the fucking time.

But this argument about who is tallest, men or women, has been asked by journalists for years and for a very good reason. THEY HAVE FUCK ALL ELSE TO DO. What a tedious fucking trivial thing to even consider. Steve Merchant is taller than Tanya Lee Davis. Big fucking whoop! Who cares? They're both equally stupid comedians. He goes on about the awkwardness of life (yawn) and she babbles on about how bad public transport is (what a hack), so in a way they are equal, no? Adam Bloom is shorter than Ava Vidal but no-one gives a fuck because Adam is funny and no-one really knows who Ava is. Maybe this divide over who is tallest should just be left because it only gets in the way. We're all comedians no matter what our height. The people who bring it up are just as dull as the ones who are outraged by it. It's just a pathetic opinion made up by a pinhead.

I am 5'11", by the way.

www.michaellegge.info