Bernard Manning

Bernard John Manning (13 August 1930 – 18 June 2007) was an English comedian and nightclub owner. He gained a high profile on British television during the 1970s, appearing on shows such as The Comedians and The Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club. His act became controversial as attitudes changed, with the result that Manning was rarely seen on television in the last few decades of his career. However, he continued to perform at live venues until his death.

Manning was born in Harpurhey, Lancashire, and raised in Ancoats, both poor districts of Manchester. The second of three brothers and two sisters, he had Russian Jewish ancestry on his father's side, as well as roots in Ireland, and was brought up a "strict Catholic". In an interview with The Daily Telegraph's Allison Pearson, he stated that his paternal grandfather came from Sebastopol and changed the family name from Blomberg.

He left school aged 14, worked in a tobacco factory and joined his father's greengrocery business, before joining the British Army to do his National Service.

Manning had little thought of entertainment as a career, until posted to Germany, where, according to his self-written obituary (in which he claimed to have guarded Nazi war criminals Rudolf Hess and Albert Speer in Spandau Prison, Berlin, just after the Second World War), he began to sing popular songs to entertain his fellow soldiers and pass the time. This ability led him to put on free shows at the weekends. When he began to charge admission and audiences did not decrease, he realised there was a possibility of making money from showbusiness.

On returning to England, Manning continued to sing professionally, and also worked as a compère. He was an effective singer of popular ballads and fronted big bands in the 1950s, such as the Oscar Rabin Band, which included appearances at the Ritz Hotel. Over the years he began to introduce humour into his compering. This went down well, and Manning slowly moved from being a singer and compère to a comedian. In 1959, Manning borrowed £30,000 from his father and bought a dilapidated billiard hall on the A664 Rochdale Road, and turned it into the Embassy Club. Rather quickly Manning's income substantially increased. The club played host to many other acts, and Manning claimed that the Beatles performed there early in their career.

After much work in comedy clubs and northern working men's clubs in the 1950s and 1960s, he made his television debut in 1971 on the Granada comedy show The Comedians. He compèred The Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club, which began in 1974. In this period, Manning's material was often accepted as being "harmless banter".

In 1972 he appeared as himself in the short film A Couple of Beauties.

He hosted the 1980 documentary short The Great British Striptease, filmed in Blackpool, and had a starring role in a comedy quiz show Under Manning, produced by Southern Television in 1981. The series was poorly received and short-lived, and by the 1980s Manning had fallen out of favour with television companies, either because of changing tastes or his failure to compromise with television companies. However his appearances on the northern Working Men's Club circuit continued, playing to packed audiences which he said sometimes included people from ethnic minorities.