Bernard Manning -- Please Click to Return to Front Page

Bernard Manning
Manning on stage in 2005
Birth name	Bernard John Manning
Born	13 August 1930(1930-08-13) Ancoats, Manchester, England
Died	18 June 2007 (aged 76) North Manchester General Hospital, Crumpsall, Manchester, England
Medium	Stand-up
Nationality	British[1][2]
Years active	1950s – 2007
Genres	Blue comedy
Subject(s)	Ethnicity, Stereotypes, Minority groups
Spouse	Veronica Finneran (1956–1986)
Notable works and roles	The Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club, The Comedians, Embassy Club
Website	http://www.bernardmanning.com/

Bernard John Manning (13 August 1930 – 18 June 2007) was an English stand-up comedian and nightclub owner. He was born and raised in Manchester in North West England.

Manning courted controversy because his act often contained material involving ethnic stereotypes and minority groups. This type of material, common among British stand-up comedians in the 1970s, was largely excluded from television from the 1980s onwards. Manning continued to perform in theatres and pubs until his death. Critics of his humour described much of it as racist, although Manning himself denied this.^[3][4]

Biography

Born in the Ancoats district of Manchester, Manning was of Jewish descent.^[5] Manning's house in Alkrington, Greater Manchester^[6][7] was called Shalom,^[8][9] the Hebrew word for "peace".

National Service

Manning left school aged 14, and joined his father's greengrocery business and then worked in a Gallaher's tobacco factory^[10] before joining the British Army to serve his National Service.^[11] Like many other comedians of the time (including the cast of The Goon Show), Manning held little thought of entertainment as a career, until posted to Germany. Guarding Nazi war criminals (Rudolf Hess, Albert Speer and Karl Doenitz) at Spandau Prison, Berlin just post World War II,^[12] to pass the leisure time, Manning began to sing popular standards to entertain his fellow soldiers. Manning's ability to achieve this led him to put free shows on at the weekends: when he began to charge admittance and audiences did not decrease, he realised that there was the possibility of making money from showbusiness.

Professional career

On returning to England, Manning continued to sing professionally, and also working as a compere. He was an effective singer of popular ballads and fronted many big bands in the 1950s, such as the Oscar Rabin Band.^[13] Over the years, Manning began to introduce humour into his compering. This went down well, and Manning slowly moved from being a singer/compere to a comedian.^[11]

After much work in comedy clubs and northern Working Men's Clubs in the 1950s and 1960s, Manning made his television debut in 1971 on the Granada stand-up comedy show The Comedians.^[11] He compèred The Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club which began in 1974.

In the era of political correctness Manning fell out of favour with television companies, but his appearances on the Northern Working Men's Club circuit continued, playing to packed audiences which often included people from ethnic minorities.^[11]

Manning's style never abated, but Manning had a minor television career revival towards the end of his life, including Channel 4 taking him to Bombay, India to perform. In October 2002, Manning presented one of the Great Lives programmes for Radio 4. He chose to honour the Albanian Roman Catholic nun, Mother Teresa.^[11]

In 2003, Manning was initially reported to have been booked to play a British National Party rally. However, he denied this, telling The Mirror; "It's a lot of bollocks. I don't know where I'm working. Speak to my agent. I don't know about any BNP nonsense. I would not do it anyway. Do you think I'm fucking barmy?"^[14] In 2006, he made Madonna laugh at the 40th birthday party of chef Marco Pierre White.^[9]

In March 2007 he was ranked 29th on the list of the 100 Greatest Stand Up comedians in a poll conducted by Channel 4.^[15]

Manning's sense of humour often ridiculed the deaths of other famous people. The death of Roy Castle from cancer in 1994 saw Manning tell the following joke: "When Roy Castle's doctor told him that he only had six months to live, he said that he could do it in four!" In 2002, after the death of the Queen Mother, he said that the Royal Corgis were happy to hear about her death as they would no longer be blamed for pissing on the settee.^[16]

Embassy Club

In his later life, although he still toured Britain, he tended to appear most frequently at The Embassy, the club on the A664 Rochdale Road. Set up with his father in 1959, Manning owned the club in Harpurhey, Manchester, although his son, Bernard Jnr. managed it. The club is reputed to have played host to many rising acts - Manning claimed The Beatles performed there early in their career.^[9]

Personal life

Manning's wife Veronica, known as Vera, died of a heart attack in November 1986, aged 57. His son Bernard Jnr. had moved out of the family home so Manning moved back in with his mother. His brother John had died in 1944 at the Battle of Arnhem, while in 1995 his elderly mother and his two remaining brothers Jackie and Frank also died.^[9][11]

Manning was a life-long Manchester City F.C. supporter.^[17]

For many of his later years, Manning was teetotal, and a diabetic.^[18] Admitted two weeks earlier for a kidney complaint, Manning died in North Manchester General Hospital at 3:10 pm on Monday, 18 June 2007 at the age of 76.^[4][19] He wrote his own eulogy which appeared as an obituary in the Daily Mail two days later.^[20]

Style

Race, sex and religion were all part of the material for many of Manning's jokes, but Manning considered tampons and disabled people unacceptable subjects; although he was pulled up on the Joan Rivers show by guest Rupert Everett when he told a joke about a wheelchair-user.^[21] In 1994, two black waitresses at a charity dinner took exception to Manning's act^[22] and appealed to an industrial tribunal against the management of the hotel for racial discrimination. They lost, later to have the decision overturned at appeal, where they won an undisclosed sum.^[22] Manning felt the word "wog" was "a horrible, insulting word I've never used in my life" but defended use of the words "nigger" and "coon" as historical terms with respectable roots.^[11]

Manning's detractors, including television presenter Esther Rantzen, said he was a bigoted racist. Conversely, black activist Darcus Howe once stated that he felt he had more in common with Manning than with Tony Blair.^[23]

Manning was voted 16th in a round-up of the 100 Worst Britons. Manning was the first member of the list to have died (one of the stipulations for being on the list was that you must be alive).

Manning's family and friends insisted his controversial ways were all a stage-based act. He also lived next door to an Indian doctor's family, who over the years have appeared in a number of newspaper articles including the Daily Mail, defending Manning as a "perfect gentleman". Recently, the poet widow of Visveswara Rao Rudravajhala, Satya Rudravajhala, wrote a eulogy that was published in the local paper, the Middleton Guardian, conveying the family's sentiments.^[24]

In interviews with journalists, Manning would remind them of appearing with Dean Martin in Las Vegas and meeting the Queen. He was a great believer in family values, who never swore in front of his mother:^[11]

I dragged myself up by my bootlaces. I don't drink or smoke, I don't take drugs. I have never been a womaniser. I was brought up right with good parents and I have never been in trouble or harmed no-one. And I love my family.

References

External links

• Bernard Manning at the Internet Movie Database
• BBC announcement of Manning's death
• Guardian obituary: Bernard Manning
• Manchester Evening News: Article announcing Bernard Manning's death
• Bernard Manning's website
• His page at My Manchester
• Banned from the Weymouth Pavilion in 2002
• Bernard's episode of Great Lives on Radio 4 - his admiration for Mother Theresa in October 2002
• 'My dad wasn't a bigoted bruiser' says Bernard Manning's son - Mail on Sunday
• Bernard Manning on Chortle

Audio clips

• Bernard's last ever interview with Opal Bonfante "How I want people to remember me"

Video clips

• At the Gardner's Arms in Stockport
• Bernard Manning in live stand-up, 29 May 2005

Open source encyclopedia content modification information:

This page was last modified on 8 March 2010 at 18:52.

Authorship and Review

Open source encyclopedia content provided here is not reviewed directly by MedLibrary.org. Content is sourced directly from Wikipedia and is authored by an open community of volunteers. It is not produced by or in any way affiliated with MedLibrary.org.

Usage Guidelines

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article on "Bernard Manning", which is available in its original form here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bernard_Manning

All material adapted used from Wikipedia is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. Wikipedia® itself is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.