Bernard Manning in Las Vegas (1978)

[banana]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXEg_Jv8Lv0

[Mr_Simnock]

The best thing about manning's career was watching it slide into obscurity, and knowing he knew it too, in the last decades of his life

[shiftwork2]

Of course it's not quite that simple.  Jonathan Margolis's biography is worth a go for a balanced view of his career.  In later years Manning did very well out of the notoriety of being 'off tv'.

I saw him at Wimbledon Theatre (front row, but I didn't get ripped to bits much to the annoyance of my g/f at the time) in the late 90s and he was a glorious technician but - by then at least - a rotten man.

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

Andy Peebles!

[pigamus]

I enjoyed seeing the orange buses. The fat racist, less so.

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

I like how in this very programme Bernard makes a joke about an Irish feller being on a plane, and it's the ( nationality non- specified) pilot who acts like a thick cunt. Subverting the norm, right there.

[sevendaughters]

I wound the video on and it is interesting that he prefaces a couple of jokes with "these are just jokes" in a slightly back-footed way before saying something bigoted, I expected his defensiveness to be a late 80s acquisition.

My mum, not known for her liberal sentiment on comedy, walked out of a Manning show when he picked on an Asian man mercilessly.

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

I wound the video on when Bernard sang ENTIRE FUCKING SONGS as part of his act in Vegas. No need.

[Smeraldina Rima]

Thanks for sharing this. I liked the interviews with the audience at his club and the conversation with Joan Rivers.

LisaJAMC talking about the surprising Irish joke made me think of this fairly pointless stuff which brings together Bernard Manning, Norm Macdonald and Richard Madeley:

2 and a half minutes in to Bernard Manning On the Job Bernard tells a joke involving the riddle:

Brothers and sisters have I none but that man's father is my father's son. Who is he?

Bernard tells it as the taxi driver from Liverpool saying the answer to his riddle is himself (the taxi driver) and later when the Irish guy repeats the riddle to someone else he thinks the answer is specifically the taxi driver in Liverpool.

But I think the answer should really be his son not himself:

That man's [my son's] father is my father's son.

Norm Macdonald tells the same joke with the same wrong answer, but it's a Frenchman listening to a riddle from a cab driver in New York:
Norm Macdonald Riddle Joke

So both Bernard Manning and Norm Macdonald tell the same joke with the wrong answer to the riddle included, but I don't know if they include the wrong answer on purpose or not.

Richard Madeley posed the same riddle simply for the love of riddles (1 minute and 54 seconds in to this compilation) and gives the same (wrong) answer, ignoring someone who gets it right:

Richard Madeley: Brothers and sisters have I none, but that man's father is my father's son? So who was I talking about? Anyone wanna have a guess?

Studio audience member: grandfather?

Madeley: Grandfather no.

Studio audience member: son?

Madeley: Son, no.

Studio audience member: himself?

Madeley: HIMSELF! Correct, sir.

[Autopsy Turvey]

Brothers and sisters have I none but that man's father is my father's son. Who is he?

Bernard tells it as the taxi driver from Liverpool saying the answer to his riddle is himself (the taxi driver) and later when the Irish guy repeats the riddle to someone else he thinks the answer is specifically the taxi driver in Liverpool.

But I think the answer should really be his son not himself:

That man's [my son's] father is my father's son.

Bernard specifies that the taxi driver looks in the mirror as he's saying it, which I think clinches it? So he's looking at himself when he refers to 'that man'?

[Smeraldina Rima]

I had the same thought and wasn't sure whether that was meant as part of the riddle or his way of talking to his passenger. Not sure even that works though to be honest.

If he's looking in the mirror, then after saying 'that man' the rest of the riddle is redundant (and contradictory since it's still the same riddle that doesn't apply to himself (the man in the mirror) but to his son). Fuck knows.

[TheMonk]

I won't put myself through Manning, but there's some bloody brilliant stuff from the uploader, er, Bum Gravy in his or her account there. Have a dig. Cheers.

[badaids]

The best thing about manning's career was watching it slide into obscurity, and knowing he knew it too, in the last decades of his life

http://viz.co.uk/2015/02/04/saint-bernard-manning/

Won't link as a picture sadly.

[Andy147]

Thanks for sharing this. I liked the interviews with the audience at his club and the conversation with Joan Rivers.

LisaJAMC talking about the surprising Irish joke made me think of this fairly pointless stuff which brings together Bernard Manning, Norm Macdonald and Richard Madeley:

2 and a half minutes in to Bernard Manning On the Job Bernard tells a joke involving the riddle:

Brothers and sisters have I none but that man's father is my father's son. Who is he?

Bernard tells it as the taxi driver from Liverpool saying the answer to his riddle is himself (the taxi driver) and later when the Irish guy repeats the riddle to someone else he thinks the answer is specifically the taxi driver in Liverpool.

But I think the answer should really be his son not himself:

That man's [my son's] father is my father's son.

Norm Macdonald tells the same joke with the same wrong answer, but it's a Frenchman listening to a riddle from a cab driver in New York:
Norm Macdonald Riddle Joke

So both Bernard Manning and Norm Macdonald tell the same joke with the wrong answer to the riddle included, but I don't know if they include the wrong answer on purpose or not.

"Brothers and sisters have I none but that man's father is my father's son" is a very old riddle to which the correct answer is, as you say, "his son".

I remember decades hearing someone (Stan Boardman, maybe?) telling the same joke except the riddle was phrased as "Brothers and sisters have I none, but that man there is my father's son" which makes the riddle pretty weak but now the joke makes sense.

Searching for it online gives loads of copies of the Manning/Macdonald version.

[bgmnts]

I saw him at Wimbledon Theatre (front row, but I didn't get ripped to bits much to the annoyance of my g/f at the time) in the late 90s and he was a glorious technician but - by then at least - a rotten man.

He didn't make me laugh but fair play he set up the lights and rigged up the sound like nobody i've ever seen.

[RicoMNKN]

I won't put myself through Manning, but there's some bloody brilliant stuff from the uploader, er, Bum Gravy in his or her account there. Have a dig. Cheers.

Good spot.  Including a TV version of Shuttleworth's Showtime, which I wasn't aware existed.  Starring Jenny Eclair as Julie Satan.

[Smeraldina Rima]

"Brothers and sisters have I none but that man's father is my father's son" is a very old riddle to which the correct answer is, as you say, "his son".

I remember decades hearing someone (Stan Boardman, maybe?) telling the same joke except the riddle was phrased as "Brothers and sisters have I none, but that man there is my father's son" which makes the riddle pretty weak but now the joke makes sense.

Searching for it online gives loads of copies of the Manning/Macdonald version.

Thanks. I suppose that weak version that makes the joke work is improved by the emphasis on looking in the mirror to begin with that Autopsy Turvey pointed out. So Manning was probably working with the altered mirror/'that man there' version and slipped back into the original riddle (his exact thought processes taken to the grave).

[Gurke and Hare]

What is it with comedians and that riddle? Pappy's spent ages talking about it in one of their podcasts recently and eventually got the right answer, but it's dead simple if you think about it for a moment isn't it?

[neardark]

Yeah, I got it straight away, and I don't know how the answer would be anyone but himself. Barely even a riddle.

[Dr Rock]

It's a stupid riddle because it's completely unnatural to refer to yourself as 'that man there' even if you were looking in a mirror. Maybe if you were looking at an old photo.

[mrClaypole]

I watched this documentary.  It was refreshing to see an old school documentary in which we don't have to endure recaps and "coming up" nonsense we have to put up with.
Now obviously Manning has some very questionable material but you have to admire his craft.  He's a proper technician of the stage.  He has a fierce couldn't give a fuck attitude and amazing self belief.
Not many of his jokes didn't land with that audience but the couple that bombed didnt seem to phase him.
Please don't cancel me for those above observations

[sevendaughters]

I watched this documentary.  It was refreshing to see an old school documentary in which we don't have to endure recaps and "coming up" nonsense we have to put up with.
Now obviously Manning has some very questionable material but you have to admire his craft.  He's a proper technician of the stage.  He has a fierce couldn't give a fuck attitude and amazing self belief.
Not many of his jokes didn't land with that audience but the couple that bombed didnt seem to phase him.
Please don't cancel me for those above observations

thing is though, he did give a fuck - not enough to stop doing racist material - but enough to get squirmy and defensive when challenged, either citing his major successes or that they're just jokes. the inner sadness at not being universally loved absolutely oozes out him.

[mrClaypole]

thing is though, he did give a fuck - not enough to stop doing racist material - but enough to get squirmy and defensive when challenged, either citing his major successes or that they're just jokes. the inner sadness at not being universally loved absolutely oozes out him.

Towards the end maybe. What I interpreted from that documentary was that he was at the top of his game at the time of filming.  He was on mainstream TV. He played to packed houses. He appeared on chat shows who genuinely wanted him on there and not because they wanted to tear him apart and have him publicly flogged.

In later interviews you get a sense that he can't comprehend that the world has changed and his refusal to change with it made him a national pariah.

[PlanktonSideburns]

Watch out lad

THIS IS 'TBAT COUNTRY

[Autopsy Turvey]

thing is though, he did give a fuck - not enough to stop doing racist material - but enough to get squirmy and defensive when challenged, either citing his major successes or that they're just jokes.

A classic example of Bernard self-defence:

"I get up on stage and I do an act," Bernard Manning once said. "It's not me, just as an actor playing a part in a film isn't the character. I don't go home to my grandkids and say, 'F***ing queers, n*****s, they're all c***s'. It's my act, not me. It's all a joke."
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/racist-and-sexist-on-stage-tolerant-and-generous-off-1.1211845

So he gave a fuck about being assumed to be the ultra-cuntish cartoon fascist that he appeared to be onstage, but it wasn't *that* much of a fuck, as it didn't lead him to tone down his material - exactly the opposite; when all the other old-school club comics were gradually dropping their race jokes, Bernard was putting more in. Once it was established that a new political ethos was dividing comedy in the 80s, he doubled down on the adversarial perspective seemingly in a concerted bid to further annoy, appal and infuriate the sort of people who didn't like him. Which is why I think this line -

the inner sadness at not being universally loved absolutely oozes out him.

- is somewhat in the eye of the beholder. I can see no evidence that Bernard Manning of all people wanted to be universally loved, and plenty to suggest he revelled in the sort of hatred and disgust that he was capable of inspiring. He gleefully emphasised his own repulsiveness, towards the end of his life refusing to appear on TV with his shirt and trousers on, eventually getting so bored of the "are you a racist" questions that he dropped the "jokes" defence and started answering "yes" (as a joke).

An additional amusing aspect of this is the needlessly unpleasant way that people in even his most innocuous jokes communicate - eg in the riddle routine, when the Irishman's father contemplates the riddle and says he doesn't know the solution, the Irishman's rejoinder to his own dad is "You ignorant cunt".

In later interviews you get a sense that he can't comprehend that the world has changed and his refusal to change with it made him a national pariah.

This is certainly how all the arts journalists and commentators have wanted to frame it for 40+ years, but in reality the world of Manning, his club and audience, weren't part of this 'changing world'. And he wasn't really a national pariah, he was a pariah to at most 50% of the country, but that 50% included most of the culture, media and broadcasting establishment, so that's the version that tends to dominate discussion.

This Guardian interview is interesting, the writer doesn't get the narrative he expects and ends up completely bamboozled:

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2003/jun/23/comedy.artsfeatures

"It's only time that will integrate all of us. But it takes time - we don't like change overnight here. I mean, some of these asylum seekers that come into this country now, once they get a few bob in their pocket and get a bit of property and save up, buy a little shop, buy a little house... stepping stones. Their grandchildren and grand-grandchildren will do better."

[Chollis]

sadly we will never see comedy like this again as having a laugh and sharing humour is over comedy is dead and buried sadly RIP BERNARD YOU WOULD HATE WHAT THE COUNTRY HAS BECOME NOW SON!! THE PC BRIGADE HAVE FUCKED IT FOR ALL COMICS AND ANYONE WHO ENJOYS A LAUGH

[checkoutgirl]

refusing to appear on TV with his shirt and trousers on

In his own house mind, I'm sure he wasn't showing up on Mrs Merton's in his vest and pants.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

When people say he was technically gifted and a master of the stage, they really just mean his voice don't they? He wasn't exactly Norm MacDonald was he, mumbling punchlines all over the place and dropping beats in the timing. Did have an amazing voice for stand up tho, shame about the whole massive cunt thing.

A classic example of Bernard self-defence:

Yes "its a character what I was doing" the truest sign that a performer is working on a level above you and I. The Olympian heights inhabited only by the likes of Bernard Manning, Alex Jones and The Angry Videogame Nerd

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

When people say he was technically gifted and a master of the stage, they really just mean his voice don't they? He wasn't exactly Norm MacDonald was he, mumbling punchlines all over the place and dropping beats in the timing.

Yes. Manning's delivery was terrible, he was practically incoherent at times. Where did this notion that he was a technically gifted comedian come from? It's bollocks. All he had going for him as a performer was confidence.

[Autopsy Turvey]

Yes. Manning's delivery was terrible, he was practically incoherent at times.

Nah, it was good. Phrasings, rhythms, emphases and pauses were invariably judged just right to maximise the laugh, and as VGF2000 admits, he had a terrific voice for stand-up, probably the most 'iconic' stand-up voice (is there an auditory equivalent of iconic?). I've seen/heard far more full sets by BM (such a shame his middle name wasn't Les, Larry or Lemuel) than I care to admit, and I never struggled to understand a single word, although he was still going in his mid-70s when his health was failing, so there may have been some slurring at that point.