Bernard Manning

Bernard John Manning (13 August 1930 – 18 June 2007) was an English comedian and nightclub owner.

Manning gained a high profile on British television during the 1970s, appearing on shows such as The Comedians and The Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club. His act became controversial as attitudes changed, with the result that Manning was rarely seen on television in the last few decades of his career. However, he continued to perform at live venues until his death.

Early life
Manning was born in Harpurhey, Lancashire, and raised in Ancoats, both poor districts of Manchester, the second of three brothers and two sisters. He had Russian Jewish ancestry on his father's side, as well as roots in Ireland, and was brought up a "strict Catholic". He claimed, in an interview with The Daily Telegraph's Allison Pearson, that his paternal grandfather came from Sebastopol, and changed the family name from Blomberg.

He named his house in Alkrington "Shalom", the Hebrew word for "peace". He left school aged 14, joined his father's greengrocery business, and then worked in a Gallaher's tobacco factory, before joining the British Army to do his National Service.

Manning had 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 after the Second World War, he began to sing popular songs to entertain his fellow soldiers and pass the time. This ability led him to put on free shows at the weekends; when he began to charge admission and audiences did not decrease, he realised that there was a possibility of making money from show business.

Career
On returning to England, Manning continued to sing professionally, and also worked as a compère. He was an effective singer of popular ballads and fronted big bands in the 1950s, such as the Oscar Rabin Band, which included appearances at the Ritz Hotel. Over the years, he began to introduce humour into his compering. This went down well, and Manning slowly moved from being a singer and compère to a comedian. In 1959, Manning borrowed £30,000 from his father and bought a dilapidated billiard hall on the A664 Rochdale Road, and turned it into the Embassy Club. Rather quickly, Manning's income substantially increased. The club played host to many other acts, and Manning claimed that the Beatles performed there early in their career.

After much work in comedy clubs and northern working men's clubs in the 1950s and 1960s, he made his television debut in 1971 on the Granada comedy show The Comedians. He compèred The Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club, which began in 1974. In this period, Manning's material was often accepted as being "harmless banter".

By the 1980s, Manning had fallen out of favour with television companies, either because of changing tastes or his failure to compromise with television companies. However, his appearances on the northern Working Men's Club circuit continued, playing to packed audiences which he claimed sometimes included people from ethnic minorities.

In 1994, two black waitresses at a charity dinner at a hotel in Derbyshire took exception to Manning's act 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. Manning felt that 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 legitimate roots.

Manning never toned down his act, but he had a minor television career revival towards the end of his life, including Channel 4 taking him to Mumbai to perform. In October 2002, he participated in a Great Lives programme for Radio 4. He chose to honour the Roman Catholic nun, Mother Teresa. In 2003, Manning was initially reported to have been booked to play a BNP rally. He denied this, telling the Daily 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?"

In 2006, he appeared at the 45th birthday party of chef Marco Pierre White, with Madonna as one of the members of the audience.

From 1999, his son, Bernard Manning Jr., managed the club, shortly after his father had a mini stroke and became deaf in one ear. He considered his father's act inappropriate for bookings and sought to turn the club into an alternative comedy venue.

Comedy style
Race, sex, and religion were all part of the material for many of Manning's jokes. He considered tampons and disabled people unacceptable subjects, although he was challenged on Joan Rivers's show by guest Rupert Everett when he told a joke about a wheelchair user. Manning swiftly responded: "If your brains were dynamite, you wouldn't have enough to blow off your own hat." This left Everett speechless.

Manning's detractors criticised his style of humour, with television presenter Esther Rantzen commenting that "for me, he's always been the villain of comedy". Manning's family and friends said that his controversial ways were all an act. He lived next door to an Indian doctor's family, who have appeared in many newspaper articles over the years to defend Manning as a "perfect gentleman". Satya Rudravajhala, the poet widow of Visveswara Rao Rudravajhala, wrote a eulogy that was published in the local paper, the Middleton Guardian, conveying the family's sentiments.

In interviews with journalists, Manning would remind them of his appearance with Dean Martin in Las Vegas and meeting the Queen. He claimed to be a great believer in family values who never swore in front of his mother, stating: "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."

In March 2007, he was ranked 29th on the list of the 100 Greatest Stand Up comedians in a poll conducted by Channel 4. The writer and performer Barry Cryer said when Manning died: "The thing about Bernard was that he looked funny, he sounded funny and he had excellent timing. It was just what he actually said that could be worrying."

Personal life
Manning's wife, Veronica Finneran, died of a heart attack on 11 November 1986, aged 57. His son Bernard Jr. had already 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 and in 1995, his elderly mother and two remaining brothers, Jackie and Frank, also died.

Manning was a lifelong Manchester City supporter. He was the subject of This Is Your Life on 27 November 1991. For many of his later years, he was a teetotaler and a diabetic.

Having been admitted two weeks earlier for a kidney complaint, Manning died in North Manchester General Hospital at 3:10 pm on 18 June 2007. He was 76. He wrote his own eulogy, which appeared as an obituary in the Daily Mail two days later.

Legacy
In 2010, BBC Four commissioned Alice Nutter to write a biographical drama based on Manning's life. The screenplay was completed but cuts to the channel's budget led to the piece never being filmed.

Audio clips

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