Oxford-educated Saltburn director Emerald Fennell, 38, is branded a ‘f***ing snob’ for chuckling at joke about working class people, reveals EMILY PRESCOTT

As director of Saltburn, Emerald Fennell satirized the excesses of the ultra-rich.

But last week she turned red after being booed and called a ‘snob’ for laughing at a joke about working-class people.

Oxford-educated Emerald found herself challenged when interviewing comedian Jonny Sweet about his new novel, The Kellerby Code.

When he laughed at the writer’s anecdote about once being mistaken for a waiter at a posh dinner, a woman in the audience at Waterstones, central London, took offense and complained: “That’s not funny.” Why is it fun to be a waiter? What bloody snobs.’

She then tore several pages out of the book and stormed out of the event.

Emerald, 38, is the Marlborough-educated daughter of famous jeweler Theo Fennell, while Jonny, who also wrote Olivia Colman’s new film Wicked Little Letters, was privately educated at Nottingham High School before going to Cambridge.

After the incident, Emerald told me: ‘I’ve gotten used to it now, but it bothers me that it happened during Jonny’s moment.