Bernard Manning

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WTF is he ?

― anthony easton (anthony), Friday, 17 January 2003 15:39 (twenty-three years ago)

He is a comedian. Not a very funny one, who has a reputation, well earned in some ways,, for being sexist and racist. He counters accusations of sexism by saying he is married, the racism accusation he counters by saying he loves eating curry.

He is not one of Britains greatest arguers.

― Pete (Pete), Friday, 17 January 2003 15:40 (twenty-three years ago)

I like the name Bernie.

― Chris V. (Chris V), Friday, 17 January 2003 15:43 (twenty-three years ago)

He loves his momma and he was an altar boy

― kayT (kaytee), Friday, 17 January 2003 15:44 (twenty-three years ago)

it was funny when they got him to sing Smiths songs

― Alan (Alan), Friday, 17 January 2003 15:44 (twenty-three years ago)

You get some people saying he has amazing comic techique and timing, which you have to see live to appreciate. I suspect this is untrue, or no more true of him than anyone else, and it gained popularity as a cover line when it became unacceptable to say he was funny.

― Tom (Groke), Friday, 17 January 2003 15:44 (twenty-three years ago)

Having comic timing and crap jokes is like playing tennis without a ball.

― Ronan (Ronan), Friday, 17 January 2003 15:46 (twenty-three years ago)

still confused, anglos. why is he racist and sexist, why is the smiths song thing funny.

― anthony easton (anthony), Friday, 17 January 2003 15:49 (twenty-three years ago)

A night in the Embassy Club, Harpurhey:

Bernard walks on stage. Tells Mother-in-Law joke. Someone laughs loudly. Bernard swears at them. Audience in stitches. Bernard spies slightly off-white member of audience. Bernard calls member 'Sabu'. ~~Racist enjoyment~~ Hilarity ensues. Repeat until finish of act.

― Dave B (daveb), Friday, 17 January 2003 15:51 (twenty-three years ago)

did you see him on the Mrs Merton show a few years back? he embarassed himself but also Richard Wilson...Aherne managed to salvage some dignity from the whole thing just about...everyone looked better sitting next to Bernard basically

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 17 January 2003 15:51 (twenty-three years ago)

Sabu ?

― anthony easton (anthony), Friday, 17 January 2003 15:51 (twenty-three years ago)

Sabu - IIRC he was an Indian character in films involving colonially stereotypical derring do tales of adventure.

As such, it's a name that was used as a generic for anyone of Indian extraction; like Fritz (German), Manuel (Spain), Bruce (Australia) and is much beloved of late night pissed up Indian restaurant customers in provincial English towns.

― Dave B (daveb), Friday, 17 January 2003 15:56 (twenty-three years ago)

Mrs. Merton to Manning: "So Bernard. Who are you going to vote for now that Hitler's dead?"

― Ben Mott (Ben Mott), Friday, 17 January 2003 15:57 (twenty-three years ago)

alan is right it was hilarious when he sang
the smiths (on 'the last resort' ?)
and i'd soooooo love to see it again.

― piscesboy, Friday, 17 January 2003 16:23 (twenty-three years ago)

There was an interesting review of one his shows a few weeks back, discussing the contradictions of the man - a Jewish comedian telling unspeakably vile racist jokes, yet with a unexpectedly moral streak ("sympathy for the people of Iraq and Afghanistan").

http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/reviews/story/0,11712,872647,00.html

― Tag, Friday, 17 January 2003 20:11 (twenty-three years ago)

As an Australian, I am unfamiliar with the work of Mr Manning (one of many hardships we in the cultural backwaters have to endure) and I completely misinterpreted the title of the thread, and read it as 'manning the Bernard', which I thought may have been the latest Brit slang term for masturbation. Except I couldn't work out what 'Bernard' was rhyming slang for.

Then I started reading the thread and realised I was barking up the wrong tree. Then I read some more and made a further observation that maybe I wasn't quite as wrong as I thought.

― Fred Nerk, Saturday, 18 January 2003 11:34 (twenty-three years ago)

By which I meant that his act could well be described by my interp of 'Bernard-manning'.

― Fred Nerk, Saturday, 18 January 2003 11:51 (twenty-three years ago)

"it was funny when they got him to sing Smiths songs"

If 'Girlfriend in a coma' pops into my head it's always the Manning version.

― James Ball (James Ball), Tuesday, 21 January 2003 10:45 (twenty-three years ago)

Bernard Manning has been told that he must lose four stone or he will die.

― Eugene Speed (Eugene Speed), Tuesday, 21 January 2003 21:57 (twenty-three years ago)

Breaking news....unfortunately Bernard Manning has lost four stone.

― Eugene Speed (Eugene Speed), Tuesday, 21 January 2003 21:58 (twenty-three years ago)

Everyone buy him lots of chocolate, quickly!

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 21 January 2003 22:09 (twenty-three years ago)

three years pass...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iql6KEraAYo&search=bernard%20manning

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Monday, 29 May 2006 13:16 (twenty years ago)

Anyone remember the Spitting Image "Newsflash" at the end of the show?

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy (Kerr), Monday, 29 May 2006 13:32 (twenty years ago)

I thought this thread had been revived because perhaps he had died! I wonder what people (in the media) will say about him when he does.

― Konal Doddz (blueski), Monday, 29 May 2006 13:59 (twenty years ago)

"It's a fookin' disgrace"

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Monday, 29 May 2006 14:03 (twenty years ago)

He's Jewish?!

― Cracks (Crackity), Monday, 29 May 2006 14:04 (twenty years ago)

I thought his Judaism was well known!

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Monday, 29 May 2006 14:06 (twenty years ago)

Heh, apparently not. I'm not a Manning expert it must be said.

― Cracks (Crackity), Monday, 29 May 2006 14:08 (twenty years ago)

I remember some years ago on Joan Rivers' not very good late night talk show, Rupert Everett refused to shake Bernard Manning's hand when he walked out onto the stage.

I also saw the documentary about him a while ago, and he is just an unmitigated bollox. Not funny, not pleasant, not smart, not anything really. Just a bloody old-fashioned racist, sexist git who people feel they have to defend because... I don't know why. Because they hope they can rediscover him in some ironic way?

― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Monday, 29 May 2006 14:14 (twenty years ago)

He did son Peter Cook in a Joan Rivers talkshow beef once, though.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Monday, 29 May 2006 14:17 (twenty years ago)

three months pass...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5cS0bZiJ1Q

― Sadly, he will be the next Alexis Petridish. (Dom Passantino), Friday, 22 September 2006 07:07 (nineteen years ago)

Not dead then.

Unlikely to be driving a turborocket at 300mph.

― mark grout (mark grout), Friday, 22 September 2006 15:26 (nineteen years ago)

eleven months pass...

http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,,2166204,00.html

― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Monday, 10 September 2007 14:32 (eighteen years ago)

ITV cleared over 'racist' joke

Chris Tryhorn
Monday September 10, 2007
MediaGuardian.co.uk

McDonald: Ofcom ruled that his joke about Bernard Manning was 'clearly intended to parody' the comic's approach. Photograph: Johnny Green/PA

ITV has been cleared of racism by TV watchdog Ofcom after Sir Trevor McDonald called the late controversial comic Bernard Manning a "fat, white bastard".

A total of 112 viewers complained that the remark, made on Sir Trevor's ITV1 Sunday night news comedy programme News Knight the week Manning died, was inappropriate or racist.

But Ofcom said Sir Trevor "clearly intended to parody" Manning's own brand of comedy, which played on racial stereotypes and was often denounced as racist.

The regulator cleared ITV of breaching broadcasting guidelines, ruling that "any offence that may have been caused was justified by the context".

During the June 24 edition of News Knight, less than a week after Manning's death aged 76, Sir Trevor introduced an item as "Racist and Dead".

"This week, it's the turn of corpulent, narrow-minded northerner Bernard Manning," he said. "Personally, I never thought of Bernard Manning as a racist comic... just a fat, white bastard...".

In its ruling, Ofcom pointed out that News Knight was broadcast at 10pm, a full hour after the 9pm watershed and that it was clearly "an edgy, satirical look at the week's news".

"In the case of this programme, Sir Trevor McDonald obviously, and intentionally, drew on Bernard Manning's own style of humour, which frequently played on the real or apparent prejudices of his audience.

"The comments were clearly intended to parody Manning's own comedy, where he claimed he was not himself racist, but simply made 'jokes' based on racial stereotypes," Ofcom said.

"It was in such a context that Sir Trevor McDonald could therefore state that he did not consider Manning to be a racist but then went on to say that he was '...a fat white bastard'".

In a separate ruling announced today, Ofcom found BBC1's 6pm news programme in breach of its code for broadcasting video of the 2012 Olympic logo that could have caused epileptic seizures.

The watchdog received eight complaints about the BBC1 news bulletin, including one from the British Epilepsy Association.

"A brief diving sequence of 45 frames [around 2 seconds in length] contained an excessive number of 'flashes' that were clearly in breach of the guidelines," Ofcom ruled.

The BBC was also rapped for including a clip of the Arctic Monkeys using the word "fucking" in a Glastonbury highlights show broadcast at teatime on Saturday.

ITV was similarly found in breach of the code after a This Morning item on kaftans was accompanied by Lily Allen song Smile, which features the lyric "...but you were fucking that girl next door".

― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Monday, 10 September 2007 14:33 (eighteen years ago)

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