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The beeb clearly don't know how to report this. On News 24 ..they said 'Manning dies...they then added a 'but'....and then went onto enthuse about the man's racism, which Manning always denied. I am disappointed. I saw Manning live in North Wales 10 years ago. He ended his act with the words 'keep all your friends white.' However, the beeb's response to his death is nothing short of that which Andrew Marrs says has to be brought to account. Manning was a comedian, not a political activist . His death is the loss of a landmark on the face of British comedy, and should have been treated with the respect it deserves. Simply having some cow eyed newscaster say 'but' and then going on to trivialise his death, is not at all good enough, and simply adds weight to those who think 'we know best'.

I quite liked old Bernard. He also had a good singing voice, and I'll always remember his duet with Tessie O'Shea.

Censorship is an insidious thing. Censoring humour is dangerous. Censoring society is also dangerous. We are getting very close to crossing that line. The Nazis censored.

He wasn't censored, he just could not get a booking because he wasn't funny.

He deserves no more respect than any other dead person.

Absolutely brilliant obituary written in advance by Manning in the Mail today.

On the contrary Godiver Manning got loads of bookings, in fact he was probably the most hard working stand up in the business. He couldn't get work on television admittedly. And he was very funny. Ask any stand up about Manning's timing and delivery. It was the champagne socialist comedians who ended his television career. Manning refused to conform. Good for him!!

He was no match for monkhouse, corbett, barker, cooper etc from the same era which tells you something about how funny he was, there is a reason he did not have the success of the above.

You can time a bad joke as well as you want but it remains a bad joke.

Godiver wrote:
He was no match for monkhouse, corbett, barker, cooper etc from the same era which tells you something about how funny he was, there is a reason he did not have the success of the above.

You can time a bad joke as well as you want but it remains a bad joke.

I don't think he ever wanted to be a match for the above. Certainly he was on TV a lot during the 1970s, but he simply wanted to continue doing the comedy he wanted to do, and by the 1980s, that comedy was totally unacceptable on TV. It's what did for Benny Hill too, to be fair.