Bernard Manning - Comedy Style

Comedy Style

Race, sex and religion were all part of the material for many of Manning's jokes, but he considered tampons and disabled people unacceptable subjects; although he was challenged on the Joan Rivers show by guest Rupert Everett when he told a joke about a wheelchair user. In 1994, two black waitresses at a charity dinner 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 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.

Manning's sense of humour often ridiculed the deaths of other famous people. The death of Roy Castle from lung 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.

Manning's detractors criticised his style of humour, with television presenter Esther Rantzen commenting “For me, he’s always been the villain of comedy.”

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". 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.

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

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.