Rising Damp
1 9 7 4 - 1 9 7 8 (UK)
28 x 30 minute episodes
A classic 28 episode comedy series from Yorkshire
Television, about people living in a shabby tenement boarding
house under snide, leering landlord Rupert
Rigsby who constantly spied on the (usually very innocent) private
lives of an assortment of long-suffering tenants.
Rigsby's obnoxious manner was perfectly offset by two
male boarders, Alan (a hopeless medical student) and
Philip (the son of an African tribal chief) who
both aided and hindered his attempts to woo his
third tenant - the slightly dotty middle-aged
spinster Miss Jones.
Sharing his inmost fears and suspicions with his cat
Vienna, Rigsby skulked about the ill-kempt house, bursting in on
tenants when he thought (almost always mistakenly) that he would catch
them in flagrante. Other lodgers later in the series were
Brenda (Gay Rose) and Spooner (Derek Newark).
The series was originally screened on ITV between 1974
and 1978 and has continued to be revived on British television at
regular intervals ever since, always attracting large audiences.
The success of the series led to a film version in 1980, but this met
with mixed response, lacking the conciseness and sharpness of the
television series and also lacking the presence of Beckinsale, who had
tragically died of a heart attack at the age of 31 the previous year.
Rossiter himself (an
insurance claims inspector until his 30s)
quickly rose to fame with his trademark sleeveless cardigan and his
often imitated "My-y-y-y God!", and went on to star in the
equally popular series The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin
before his own premature death from heart failure in 1984 (in his
dressing room during a stage performance of Loot).
TRIVIA NOTES
Rising Damp was derived from a one-off stage play called Banana
Box, in which Rossiter had played ostensibly the same role (though
under the name Rooksby).
Labour MP Tom Pendry took offence
to an episode where Rigsby made disparaging remarks about a fictional
election candidate called Pendry, calling him homosexual, hypocritical
and dishonest. Yorkshire Television were obliged to pay damages for
the (albeit unintentional) defamation.
EPISODES
The Lodgers
Black
Magic
A Night
Out
Charisma
All Our
Yesterdays
The
Prowler
Stand Up
and Be Counted
Permissive Society
Food
Glorious Food
A Body
Like Mine
Moonlight
and Roses
The
Perfect Gentlemen
The Last
of the Big Spenders
Things
That Go Bump in the Night |
For the Man Who Has Everything
That's My
Boy
Stage
Struck
Clunk
Click
The Good
Samaritan
Fawcett's
Python
The
Cocktail Hour
Suddenly
at Home
Hello
Young Lovers
Fire and
Brimstone
Great
Expectations
Pink
Carnations
Under the
Influence
Come On
In the Water's Lovely |
|
