Not going quietly: Bernard manning. Photograph: PA
Bernard Manning divided the nation. Many couldn't help laughing at his jokes, some couldn't help laughing when he died. He's gone now but never one to let being dead get in the way of having the last word, Bernard Manning from Beyond the Grave featured the comedy dinosaur narrate his own obituary in a final two-fingered salute to his critics. Tim Teeman in the Times applauded Norman Hall's "brilliant, original film" but was appalled by Manning's racism. "Horrible, horrible, horrible." was his verdict on the man, a view echoed by our own Sam Wollaston "I don't care if he had good timing... He was a horrible man, and now that he's gone, he should be quietly forgotten."
The Telegraph's Patricia Wynn Davies saw the show as "a dreary reminder that vanity publishing of any kind is never a good idea" and Alison Graham writing in the Radio Times was scornful of the popular Manning defence that he was equally hateful to everyone. "Which I suppose makes everything all right, doesn't it?" she asked. This question, once answered, ultimately defines everyone's position on Manning.
So what's your position - was the film a valid enterprise or the ultimate in attention-seeking?
