'World famous' venue to be razed for a health centre

The comedy club founded by Bernard Manning is to be demolished.

The self-styled ‘world famous’ Embassy Club in the Harpurhey district of north Manchester will host its final comedy night on Friday. It will then be torn down to make way for a health centre. 

Manning opened the club in a former billiard hall  in 1959 with a £30,000 loan from his father – long before the comic became a household name in the 1970s TV show The Comedians. 

It hosted the likes of Cilla Black, Engelbert Humperdinck, Tom Jones and – if Manning was to be believed – an early performance from the Beatles. Peter Kay is said to have loosely based the Phoenix Club from Phoenix Nights on the venue, having performed there in 1999.

Manning’s son, Bernard Jr, took over the club in 1999, shortly after his father had a mini-stroke, and made short-lived efforts to turn it into an alternative comedy venue.  He also added a mosaic of his father on to the front, with the late, offensive comedian’s ashes mixed into the grouting.

He put the club up for sale in 2014. Three years later an evangelical church lodged a planning application to host services at the venue, which faced local objections and never came to fruition.

The city council has more recently bought the club and land around it for the new health centre. 

Bernard Jr once told The Guardian: ‘The last time my dad was in the club was the night Peter Kay performed in 1999. Peter was bricking it, as they say – he was so nervous. I think that’s where he got the idea for Phoenix Nights. He came back and sat with my dad and heard all of his stories. Some of them definitely ended up in the series.’

And he told the Manchester Evening News: ‘Whether you liked Bernard Manning or not the shows here were a success. From the day he started to the day he finished they were always the same – three acts and a disco, from 1959 to 1999.’

Comedy Bay, which is organising Friday’s final gig, say it will be  ‘the comedy equivalent of the final night at The Hacienda’, the club at the centre of the ‘Madchester’ music scene of the 1980s and early 1990s. 

Manning died at the age of 76 in 2007.

Published: 3 Mar 2026