Bernard Manning was different class to Davidson.

Eric Morecambe's paper bag 'gag'.

Mind, pretty much anything Eric did.

Manning was a tremendous talent, but as already been said, sadly with some very distasteful material.

I do remember a couple of comments made to hecklers at a live gig which stick in my mind.

Heckler... "gerroff, yer fat b**tard"
Manning... " Let me correct you, Sir. Fat, RICH, b**tard, if you don't mind!"

Heckler... "Boo!.. Boo!.. BOO!!!"
Manning... "We do have something in common, mate. I was on telly last night, and I do remember seeing you on telly also... umm, yep, Interference!"

Many years, ago I remember going to a seedy place one night with a fat, "blue" comedian as the warm-up act (before the "action" started!). The all male audience were all giving him stick and heckling him but he thrived on it and was doing great until I intervened. He had no come backand in fact I think he laughed. I was quite pleased with myself. It's always about getting your timing right!

That's the first time I've seen Bernard Manning or Jim Davidson in a sentence containing the word "class" unaccompanied by "no".

Yep. She has both written and performed stand-up, songs, sitcom, and sketch comedy. Then as you say, there's her serious acting, a few documentaries, as well as writing a couple of musicals.

And the voiceover for those Dyson adverts

I agree. You could probably say it about a lot of others with Manning though, because in terms of delivery/timing/speed of thought etc, he was possibly the best there has been.

My point was simply that with the likes of Davidson and Manning you won't find too many people eager to bring them up for praise not because they aren't/weren't good comedians, but rather because they don't/didn't seem to be particularly good human beings. Manning does get a grudging respect, though.

And she still managed to fit in a part-time job at Asda.

You will also find that a lot of people who laughed at them in the 70's and 80' are scared to admit it now and just join in with the rest in condemning them. They drew big audiences back then, so must at some point been popular.

My favourite was Tommy Coopers one liners such as 'two aerials got married, the ceremony was lousy but the reception was brilliant'

Steven Wright:

"I put instant coffee in my microwave and went back in time".

And another one,
"My best friend is a Radio DJ. His voice goes quiet when he walks under a bridge"

My Grandad was manager of Hull New Theatre for years. He said he once made the mistake of saying good luck to Tommy Cooper, who then said it was bad luck and he couldn't go on unless my Grandad left his dressing room, closed the door, sun around anti-clockwise twice and then knocked 3 times on the door. My Grandad left, waited a few seconds, then knocked 3 times.

- "Who is it?"

I remember Les being interviewed on the telly. "I started at the clubs in Hull, they were a tough lot, if they liked you they didn't applaud. They let you live."

My dad took me to see Ken Dodd in Blackpool Tower in the 70's. Half way through he had to take a break at the back of the hall he was laughing so much he was finding it difficult to control his bodily functions. It was like being hit by a relentless barrage of brilliant gags. Lasted about 3 hours, most of the audience were knackered by the end.

Another from Ken Goodwin

A woman came to the door, "I'm collecting for the swimming baths", so I gave her a bucket of water ....

Never found Jim Davidson or Bernard Manning funny at all. Not even really down to their politics, they just didn’t really make me laugh. Spent years watching Jim Davidson on prime-time national TV just wondering what is it im missing here.

Ken Dodd aswell. Just never got it. He has some pretty funny one-liners, but it just smacked of someone being silly rather than funny.

Never got the british obsession with cross-dressing either. People seem to find a man in woman’s clothes hilarious.

I have however laughed at pretty much everything George Carlin ever said though.

And my all time favourite Ken Goodwin joke (a little Manchester geography is required) ....

Did you hear about the horse that died in Piccadilly?
A policeman was standing there for 10 minutes with his notebook until the Sergeant came along. "What are you waiting for?" says the sergeant.
"How do you spell Piccadilly?"

"er , er P I K ......"

"Oh drag it round to Tib street"

I think that's absolutely true – in essence, their comedy has dated.

Which is precisely why someone like Doddy (mentioned in this thread already, by more than one person) is so goo – his comedy never has dated and never has produced the effect you describe.

I went to see him a few years ago and its about 3 hours to the break now! He then goes on until the theatre closes - after a few times of dimming the lights! I found there was no time to laugh as you missed the next two jokes. He is just incredible and seems to want to tell the audience every joke ever written. He just goes faster and faster as the night draws to a close and it seems he genuinely would like to carry on all through the night. He also switches between different types of humour, sings, acts daft, etc. Amazing energy. Would love to see him again before its too late but when I looked recently he's mainly doing the North and Midlands now and I'm based in the South.

The greatest living British comedian / entertainer by a million miles and not one of the showbiz self-congratulatory luvvies that are always on TV.

Ken Dodd was interviewed on BBC Radio Leeds' afternoon "One on One" program which is an hours worth of chat with a random local business person or celeb - 'twas not at all what I expected as he had 50 minutes worth of serious discussion with Martin Kelner about his life and how he got into the business, he's a very religious bloke too and kept mentioning his god throughout the interview - I say 50 mins worth because he was ten minutes late getting into the Manchester studio that he was linked from, when he eventually turned up he apologised for being late as he'd thought that it was going to be a recorded interview and not a live one, they just had to play fill-in music until he arrived



One of my favourite put-downs was on an old B&W TV clip from the 1960s when Frankie Howerd was presenting "Sunday Night At The London Palladium" and Bruce Forsyth did his ten minute song-and-dance man act, at the end as he was taking a bow Frankie Howerd walked on applauding and ushered Forsyth off the stage all the time applauding and calling "Bruce Forsyth everyone, Bruce Forsyth, give him a big hand..."

When Forsyth had left the stage Frankie Howerd gave one of his theatrical looks over his shoulder into the wings to check that he'd gone then leaning to the audience whispered, "Wasn't he awful?"

I worked with Doddy ... as an assistant stage manager - and he's a genuinely lovely bloke, but most of all, an absolute comedy genius.

Apparently Doddy went on so late one night/morning, a member of the crew threw the door keys on stage and shouted for him to lock up when he was done.

last time I had the misfortune to see him (Bridlington, last year) he repeated himself 3 times, was embarrassing to see someone with an undoubted talent clearly being flogged by management, he should have bowed out 15 years ago, when he ceased to be funny.

Whilst on about comedians, has anyone on here seen Daniel Kitson?