Racist In Peace
 

The headline in the Sun this week, reporting on the death of racist comedian Bernard Manning.

Not exactly subtle, but to the point.

It's accurate and straight to the point.

It's a shame Bernard Manning has died without realising ever how offensive he was. Not likeable at all, and I've heard first-hand stories of him off stage which don't help.

Still, he did have one funny joke, and the good taste to support Manchester City, so that's something, and I'm told he did much charity work too.

Do you two have the same avatar, one pictured from the front, the other from behind? Are you in fact the same person, just looked at from different angles?

Do tell!

Rumbled.

which was?

Apparantly he stopped his act and announced to the audience that 'there are a couple of lads in tonight who fought in the Falklands War'. The audience duly broke into jingoistic applause before Bernard said 'they'te great lads, there they are over there - Diego and Carlos'.

That's kind of funny. It kind of takes the piss out of Bernard Manning fans.

That is quite funny.

agreed.

roy chubby brown next?

In a Mexican Stand off with Jim Davidson and Jim Bowen

Poor Glice, I bet that he's not going through a nice day.



Obituary: Bernard Manning

The comedian Bernard Manning was one of Britain's wealthiest comics and, many believed, among the most offensive. But his seemingly blatant racism and controversial language - some of which appears below - remained the subject of some debate until the end.

 

Manning remained loyal to his beloved home city of Manchester

People of Pakistani, Indian or African origin, Jews, the Irish, they were all fair game to him.
But in Bernard Manning's logic, jokes about disabled people, or tampons, were unacceptable.
He was born in 1930 in one of Manchester's poorest areas, Ancoats, and throughout his life never liked being far away from the city.
He left school at 14 and worked briefly in his father's greengrocer's shop before becoming a big-band singer and eventually taking over the Embassy Club in Manchester, where he was the chief performer for 40 years, generating most of his multi-million pound fortune.
Bernard Manning became a household name in the 1970s through Granada TV's The Comedians.
But with the dawn of political correctness, his stand-up routine was considered to be no longer fit for the television schedules.

 

The comic was deemed too risky for TV late in his career


On the northern club circuit, though, he continued to play to packed houses, which, as he claimed, often included people from the ethnic minorities.
Bernard Manning did not endear himself to most people. Journalists, male or female, would be obliged to interview him at his home as the 21-stone comedian sat in his vest and Y-fronts.
They would also have to endure a stream of boasts about his Rolls-Royce Silver Spirit, appearing with Dean Martin in Las Vegas, his Royal Command performance and meeting the Queen.
He also espoused simple values, with family relationships their core.
"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."

 

Manning ran the Embassy Club in Manchester


Bereavement was another of the brief list of subjects that Bernard Manning considered inappropriate for humour, especially after the pain it had caused him.
His wife Vera died of a heart attack in 1986 and he then moved back in with his mother. But nine years later, he was devastated by her death and by that of two of his brothers.
He said he never swore in front of his mother: "I would have hated her ever to have heard me curse."
His usual foul language and racist reputation made him a high risk for television.
But it was that reputation that led to a Channel 4 wheeze to take him to Bombay and see how he fared in two engagements there. Badly was the answer.

 

He made his name in the 1970s on TV's The Comedians


On Mrs Merton's television show, Bernard Manning supposedly floored Caroline Aherne's alias by confirming that he was a racist.
At least, that was his version, although most viewers felt he emerged a poor second-best from the confrontation.
During that show, Manning managed to extract several jokes from the fire at his Embassy Club and his subsequent insurance settlement.
But when he wasn't trying to confuse Caroline Aherne, he would deny being a racist: "I tell jokes," said Manning. "You never take a joke seriously."
He was furious when two black waitresses, who won damages from a Derby hotel because it failed to shield them from Manning's invective at a Round Table dinner, accused him of calling them "wogs".
"It's a horrible, insulting word I've never used in my life," he complained, while maintaining that "niggers" and "coons" were historical terms with respectable roots.
'An anachronism'
His detractors were convinced he was a bigot, while his family and friends insisted it was all an act to pull in the punters, that Manning was one of the kindest, most charitable, most loving men you could meet.
And while Manning's routine made little attempt to be topical, he could occasionally hint at subversion.
As when, soon after the Falklands war, he told his audience that two soldiers from the conflict were present.
As the jingoistic cheers rang out, Manning embarrassed the audience by adding: "They're Argentinians." Bernard Manning's biographer Jonathan Margolis concluded that Manning held anachronistic views, just "like most working-class people in their late 60s". But, Margolis suggested, Manning was simply playing on people's own prejudices.

Manning was a semi-decent comic whose career was largely kept afloat by those who chose to attack him at every occasion.

One of the old school of "I'm not a racialist, but..." comedy, he won't be missed by me. Did anyone see that show of B Manning doing stand-up in India? What a car-crash of a TV programme that was. One thing about Manning though, he at least didn't pretend to be "edgy" or "ironic", unlike the likes of Andrew Dice Clay, or the increasingly-annoying likes of Peter Kay and Ricky Gervais.

demonrail666 - how do you feel about Russell "gor blimey geez, me and my mate Noel Gallagher" Brand being a Hammer's supporter (and going on about it every weekend in the Grauniad)?

Peter Kay is an annoying cunt and very rarely I find him funny. Gervais is not as annoying but increasingly boring. I don't understand why so many people don't see the dodginess of both David Walliams and Matt Lucas. Russel Brand is quite funny, if a little repetitive.

sarramkrop - I suppose the "Lou and Andy" sketch offends some sensibilities, vis a vis taking the piss out of the handicapped (thereby missing the goddamn point of this particular sketch - it's the Andy character who always gets the upper hand). I don't mind the Brand actually, it's the "I'm a cockernee geeer" shtick that annoys me really.

I find it strange that so many idiots on TV seem to be able to celebrate his "funny" side, while then looking all serious and saying "but rascism is bad". The man was a complete twat. Rascist jokes are often seen as acceptable as long as the person telling then is'nt rascist (I find this distinction difficult to imagine), but Manning was so full of hate. It is not at all sad that he's dead.

I don't find myself offended by anything on Little Britain myself, and that sketch with Lou and Andy is not offensive, but plain boring. I much prefer that school of comedians that includes Julia Davis, Steve Coogan, Chris Morris, Armando Iannucci, Patrick Marber (who also writes superb plays), Stewart Lee, Rob Brydon, Richard Herring. They make you laugh and they make you think about a number of subjects in much more of a comical way.





http://www.bbcshop.com/content/ebiz/...&geoff-125.gif

Very much agree, sarramkrop. Not able to give you rep for this. Sorry, dude.

The Usher - forgive me for turning into the spelling police, but it's "racist", not "rascist".

Well, I like Russell Brand and I like West Ham and I read the Guardian. I'm a liberal tosser, remember.

That's exactly the sort of dodginess that I see in David Walliams and Matt Lucas. I'm not calling it racism as such, but it's almost like some latent or mild xenophobia is hidden by the self- deprecatory humour of Little Britain, which in turns drives the attention to it away from more, erm, 'simple' viewers.

He's taking the piss. His stand up is a total deconstruction of his cockney-ness

It works because we DON'T believe him. and he knows that.

Quite

I think that sketch is trying to be like Ted and Ralph from the Fast Show, but whereas that had 2 caricatures of a farmer and the upper class the focus was on their relationship and it had alot more subtlety and depth than Lou and Andy, which to me is just an excuse for Lucas to sit in a wheelchair and look disabled and Walliams to put on a speech impediment.


On Bernard Manning - You limit its effect if you dont listen i find. From what ive seen he was taking the piss out of everyone except his own audience, and thats the problem. Something like South Park takes swipes at everything, even themselves. That Falklands quip is pretty good though.

Sorry but if thats a comedy character then im a plate of chips.

[quote=the ikara cult]Quite

I think that sketch is trying to be like Ted and Ralph from the Fast Show, but whereas that had 2 caricatures of a farmer and the upper class the focus was on their relationship and it had alot more subtlety and depth than Lou and Andy, which to me is just an excuse for Lucas to sit in a wheelchair and look disabled and Walliams to put on a speech impediment.

quote]

Word!

If you're saying they have a certain respect/empathy/understanding for those they ridicule, then that's long been a necessary seed for much of what we call great comedy, and is the very reason why someone like Lee Evans is so awful.

They both come accross as phonies, that's what I'm trying to say.

David Walliams maybe. Not sure I'd agree about Lucas though. Depends what you mean by phonies I suppose.

That said, they've both hit something of a creative impasse of late.

Going off the point a bit, but in the mid-80's, I was "forced" to go watch Jimmy Cricket perform in Croydon (supported by the immortal Fogwell Flax). I reckon just about every stereotype of the thick Irishman was peddled out that night, as well as some truly rotten jokes. His piece de resistance was "dancing" in front of a strobe light to Bill Hailey's "Rock Around The Clock". Fogwell Flax was even worse. What a horrible evening that was.

Empathy and Sympathy is 2 different things. They may well have either for the characters they make but they havent got the wit and intelligence to take them beyond storyboard cartoon stage, hence the simple (if well executed) gags. A bit of character insight would do Lou and Andy wonders but Lucas and Walliams simply dont know how to do that sort of thing unlike with Only Fools and Horses or something like that - with Only fools the gag tends to be Del Boy is a bit of a conman and Rodneys not too bright but theyre fully formed characters and it makes me laugh when you see how their traits affect their interactions with their environment, not simply "Del boy is lying" or "Rodney is thick". To do that you need to take characters to a deeper level.

You're just saying that because he's gay, and gays are incapable of racism. :)

heterophobe.

Are you a licorice queen? :D

The understanding I refer to isn't towards characters so much as a certain style of British comedy, largely of the Dick Emerey kind. A sort of seaside pier grotesque.

You see? You're accusing me of heterophobia, so that it clears you up of any future jokes against the gays. Gayphobe.

Gayphobaphile

Homophobilian of the first order.

militant breederphobe

Willy loather!

Isn't that the main character in Arthur Miller's "Death Of A Salesman"?