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Bernard Manning
Bernard Manning has died. When I told Ailz she said, "Oh good"- thinking I meant Bernard Matthews the turkey-twizzler man. When I explained, no- Bernard Manning the comedian, she was sorry. She'd been to the Embassy Club a couple of times (before I knew her) and on the second visit he recognised her and came and sat at her table and shook her hand and was an all round good egg.
That's what people are saying about him- people who knew him. He was a kind man, generous to his friends, did a lot for charity and blah, blah, blah.
He also- this keeps cropping up- was technically brilliant. No-one could time a line the way he could.
He denied he was a racist. Or sometimes he did. He was just a funny man telling jokes, he said; the racist persona was an act- so lighten up. Who knows? But if it was just an act doesn't that make it worse?
Doesn't it make him unprincipled?
But I don't believe he ever really thought things through. I think he was lazy. He'd found a style that worked for him- and by the time people started asking awkward questions about it he was too old to change. If he'd been a thinking man he'd never have gone down that path in the first place.
I don't want to dance on his grave. He's part of our social history now. He belongs to us, we can't disown him and maybe it can be spun as proof of just how tolerant we are that all through our era- in spite of the race relations bureacracy and middleclass morality and the rise and fall of alternative comedy- it was still possible for a fat, ugly, white man in a tux to make money- pots and pots of money- telling playground jokes about coons and pakis and poofs.
That's what people are saying about him- people who knew him. He was a kind man, generous to his friends, did a lot for charity and blah, blah, blah.
He also- this keeps cropping up- was technically brilliant. No-one could time a line the way he could.
He denied he was a racist. Or sometimes he did. He was just a funny man telling jokes, he said; the racist persona was an act- so lighten up. Who knows? But if it was just an act doesn't that make it worse?
Doesn't it make him unprincipled?
But I don't believe he ever really thought things through. I think he was lazy. He'd found a style that worked for him- and by the time people started asking awkward questions about it he was too old to change. If he'd been a thinking man he'd never have gone down that path in the first place.
I don't want to dance on his grave. He's part of our social history now. He belongs to us, we can't disown him and maybe it can be spun as proof of just how tolerant we are that all through our era- in spite of the race relations bureacracy and middleclass morality and the rise and fall of alternative comedy- it was still possible for a fat, ugly, white man in a tux to make money- pots and pots of money- telling playground jokes about coons and pakis and poofs.
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"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."
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People (*sigh*) are complicated.
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He's a folk hero to some and a folk demon to others.
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You're right. There's a grey area between funny and offensive. And I expect we would agree there are some people it's perfectly acceptable- even obligatory- to offend- government ministers for example.
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