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Savoy Books 
The Bernard Manning
Blue Joke Book

(OUT OF PRINT)

Bernard Manning and
Michael Ginley


1981

180mm x 106mm

Soft covers

First publication

Packaged for New English Library

112pp

ISBN 0 450 053466

The Bernanrd Manning Blue Joke Book

  We walked into Bernard Manning's 'World Famous Embassy Club' in Harpurhey one day and asked for this. For our cheek we came away with Bernard's first—and to date only—joke book. "Bernard Manning is that rarest of creatures, a dialect Mancunian who nevertheless finds favour nationwide and even in the USA. Manchester's answer, if you will, to Harry Lauder or Max Miller...," writes club journo and comedy writer Michael Ginley in his Introduction. "Before Bernard, only one Manchester comic came close to national recognition: the late, great Ted Lune." He should know. (And let's also give a nod to that greatest of anarchic Northern comedians, Frank Randle). Bernard's book coincided with Southern TV's 1981 quiz show, Under Manning. There would have been a Purple and a Black joke book but New English Library's new owners, religious publishers Hodder & Stoughton, decided one was enough. Despite selling out the print run, NEL could not be persuaded to reprint. Second-hand copies just never turn up.
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