stella40
Posts: 417
Joined: 1/11/2006 From: London, UK Status: offline
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Ba eck! Bernard Manning's popped 'is clogs as he? Even though he came from t'wrong side of the Pennines, he was a brilliant comedian who called a spade a .... gardening implement. He was funny because he told it like it was. He had his critics, more noticeably since the 1980's when things started becoming PC, when we got 'alternative comedy', when British comedy stopped being funny and the Americans took our sitcom formulas and made them even funnier. Yes, Bernard Manning came from the North (nowt wrong with that, I'm from West Yorkshire), he was overweight, rude, and not the most handsome, but... he was a true professional, brilliant at one liners (and here, apart from Bob Monkhouse, he had few equals), had excellent timing, and was a heavyweight among those of the Working Mens Clubs circuits. How many of us can remember The Comedians TV show on Granada TV with the Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club? Popeye, yes, we still have the PC Brigade, we have 'hate crimes' and you can be served with an ASBO (Anti-Social Behaviour Order) if you offend someone. I spent my teenage years in Bradford, which has arguably more Paki shops per head than anywhere else in the UK (shops owned and run by Pakistanis), which themselves were a revolution when it came to small shops, they were open longer hours, at weekends, and even during Bank Holidays, and along with curries, tandoori chicken, and such have become part of British society and culture. My home in Bradford was in Manningham, where mainly Pakistanis lived and during one year at school I was one of two white children in a class of 33 children, there was one black child and the rest were Pakistani. Nobody took offence at the term. But now? I would be branded a racist. However I'm not racist, not sexist, and I'm not PC either. A TV show which I would recommend is Little Britain, which also isn't PC. As a playwright myself I'm not PC, I refuse to be PC because comedy is meant to be funny, not PC. And in my opinion when the PC brigade took over that's when British comedy stopped being funny. Bernard Manning had his critics, it isn't my favourite sort of humour (I'm a diehard Spike Milligan fan), but Bernard Manning was good at what he did, he was professional, and he could pack the crowds in. This is why the news of Bernard Manning's death is especially sad and why he will be sorely missed by a great many people in the UK.
< Message edited by stella40 -- 6/18/2007 3:15:00 PM >
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I try to take one day at a time, but several days come and attack me at once. (Jennifer Unlimited) If you can't be a good example then you'll just have to be a horrible warning.
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