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That matches my perception of him, really. Though he used racist language in his comedy and defended it, I don't see him as someone with the same visceral hatred and fear of black and Asian people as say, Nick Griffin.
Well, his agent did book him to play the BNP's Red, White and Blue Festival. While there does seem to be some doubt whether Manning himself knew that originally and he did later pull out (at least partly in response to pressure), that at least suggests that there were those close to him in a business sense, who had no problem with pandering to hardcore racists for business reasons.
However, I don't think there's anything working-class about misogyny, nor for that matter anything working-class or Northern about racism.
I'd agree and go slightly further. I think there's a tendency in some, mostly middle class, people working in the media to justify the bigotry of the likes of Manning by pointing to their working class background. With the underlying classist attitude that working class people are stupid and can't be expected to know any better.
We talk about "working men's club comedy", but how much of his comedy was actually delivered in working men's clubs? As far as I can see, most of it was done as private hire or at his own, personally owned, club.
Very little I'd guess. Apart from anything else, a lot of what are generally called "working men's clubs" (which, in itself, I'd see as mostly inaccurate. In my experience most of those clubs are no longer exclusively male) are linked heavily to the Labour Party. Mostly Old Labour people as well. While there might have been a time when the likes of Manning would have been put on by those clubs, I can't see it having happened recently.
The picture that's painted as Bernard as a hero to all those North of Mansfield is false, but he was very, very popular among the working classes in and around Manchester right through the 1970s and 1980s. He was admired for his racism. It was felt, as it always is with right-wingers, that he was speaking truths others were afraid of. And even in the last 15 years or so when there were few who'd defend his racism he was defended for his charity work, his skills as a comic, or simply for being a Northern success.
It might have been the case for a time, but I'm not convinced that it was in those 15 years for you talk about. Firstly, the fact that more and more gigs were being done at his own club suggests that he was having trouble finding bookings, including in the Manchester area. Secondly, I can't find a source for this off the top of my head, but I have heard several times that Manning was having more and more trouble pulling in a decent audience. |
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