‘THIS HAPPENS TO BE A RESPECTABLE HOUSE!’

Simon J. Ballard recalls the popular sitcom Rising Damp (1974-1978) set in a seedy bedsit lorded over by the mean, vain, boastful, cowardly, racist landlord Rigsby!

Above: Leonard Rossiter’s Rigsby chats up Frances de la Tour’s Miss Jones

Opposite: Rossiter with Richard Beckinsale and Don Warrington

Ina 2015 Channel 4 poll to find Britain’s Best Loved Sitcoms, Yorkshire Television’s 1974-1978 series Rising Damp came in at number 25, beating off quite a number of more recent comedies. It was the top-rated ITV sitcom when the BBC ran a similar competition back in 2004, and at the end of its run won a BAFTA for Best Comedy.

This despite, or because of, controversies surrounding its central character Rupert Rigsby - landlord of a crumbling Northern tenement house with delusions of grandeur - and his ignorant, racist attitudes towards black tenant Philip Smith. But were they really that simple, and so hated/hateful? And what of his desires and opinions directed at his other tenants, the lovelorn Ruth Jones and the sexually frustrated medical student Alan Moore (no, not that one)?

Rising Damp was the creation of Lincolnshire-born Eric Chappell and was born out of his frustrations with a boring job as an auditor for the East Midlands Electricity Board. Writing seemed the ideal breakaway, and he tried his hand at novel writing, for which he self-confessed to having little or no talent. A play seemed the ideal alternative, with less pages to write and concentrating purely on dialogue. The inspiration for what became The Banana Box, the precursor to Rising Damp, was a story he heard about a black man who conned a group of white hoteliers into believing he was an African prince, thus receiving much fawning and exceptional service!

Relocating the scenario to the more identifiable world of ‘Bedsitter-land’ (to coin the Leo Sayer song), the play would see main character Rooksby lord it over his tenants, reserving particular interest in Philip who claims to be the son of a chief from Africa.