[2011 note: from June 2007. The clip above features the business end of Manning and Richard Wilson's appearance on the Mrs Merton show.]
So the news sites are reporting that workingman’s club comedian Bernard Manning has posed for his last naked-in-a-tub-of-baked-beans publicity shot, passing away after a short illness at the age of 76.
Two themes predominate in the obituary quotes. The first is that he was a very nice man who did a lot of good work for charity; the second is that the allegations of racism in his comedy were simply the misplaced ire of the “PC Brigade.”
I can well believe the first assertion. It’s quite common for performers to appear at charity fundraisers supposedly “for free” meaning that they charge no actual fee, but bill the charity for huge expenses including first-class travel, posh hotels, room service, etc. Manning apparently never did this. When he appeared “for free” he appeared, near as dammit, for free.
As to the racism part, standard Manning joke from his act: “…them coons, y’know. They think they’re English because they’re born ‘ere. That means if a dog’s born in a stable, it’s a fookin ‘orse.” Cue massive audience reaction: not so much laughter as cheering.
And it wasn’t just in his stage act either, as you’ll know if you saw the talk show appearance where he got on his high horse about how “the darkies never fought for England in World War II” or some such, and fellow interviewee Richard Wilson, actor Richard Wilson, interrupted and said “I don’t believe it—”
—no, actually, what he said was “That’s total nonsense, have you never heard of the Commonwealth Army?” which, of course, he had, their existence simply happened to be inconvenient to the intolerant tirade at hand.
(Note that I am in no sense saying that Bernard Manning was responsible for the racism of his audience; only that he made a career out of exploiting it.)
So no, the racism wasn’t just a part of the act and no, the reaction against it isn’t just PC run amuck. Bernard Manning: nice guy, did a lot of good things; massive inexcusable bigot. Much as it would make the world simpler for these attributes to be mutually exclusive, it ain’t necessarily so.
