Rising Damp

It is one of the funniest shows ever made, I can watch Rising Damp and instantly lose a bad mood, if I'm honest it's down to the sheer hilarity of Leonard Rossiter. I am aware that the show comes in for stick for being racist, Rigsby was definitely ignorant, and seemed to hate everyone in equal measure, a victim of the 70's class society, but a Racist, I don't think so. Rigsby was always the butt of the joke, always made to looks idiotic by Philip, who was intelligent, cool and charming, all that Rigsby was not. Miss Jones was a delight, so prim and proper, but underneath strong passions burn, and of course Alan, played with such innocence by the wonderful Richard Beckinsale.

So many funny episodes, Pink Carnations, The Permissive Society, Moonlight and Roses, to name a few, but all time funniest episode must be Things That Go Bump in the Night, which stands up to this day as one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

The scripts are superb, but it's the comedy timing and sense of awareness from the entire cast that gets me every time I watch it, I always moan about modern day sitcoms, and why they're not funny, maybe it's not just the scripts, perhaps it's the comic actors. If you want to watch comedy masters at work, then watch Rising Damp.

This is what sometimes happens when you're a student and you've only got enough money to live in a dingy hovel... you get a landlord like Rigsby. What few standards he has are outdated, so sensitive lads with long hair and intelligent young black men are almost too much to take. Leonard Rossiter's portrayal of a character who could easily be completely beyond redemption is absolutely pitch-perfect. The more episodes you watch, the more you find yourself becoming strangely endeared to his mannerisms and tics, despite the fact that his attitude makes him a thoroughly unpleasant man. Aside from superb comic timing, Rossiter was also a master of the pratfall, so some of the most memorable sequences owe a lot to slapstick (I'm thinking particularly of the arranged boxing match.)

It isn't quite a one man show though. All of the supporting parts were perfectly cast, so even when someone like Don Warrington pops up in more modern fare such as "Red Dwarf", he's still likely to be instantly associated with playing "Phillip" in "Rising Damp". I can't think of a bad episode in the bunch that I've seen. All of the scripts are so polished that they gleam, and this combined with the acting talent is what makes the show stick in the memory as the loved favourite it is.

The sitcom was indeed one of the best from Uk. A lot of people in Britain will be surprised to learn that the sitcom is often on TV in countries in Africa. I fell in love with it a long time ago when I first saw an episode in Africa. Just watched an episode on ITV today (2015) and could not stop laughing. Rigsby got into a boxing match with Philip. The plot was hilarious. I can understand why some people find the comedy racist in today's PC world.

In my view the writers were using the sitcom to educate people with views similar to those of Rigsby back then. If they succeeded in changing the thinking a few such people then they achieved a lot. That crusade is still relevant today.

I don't find it racist even after years in the Uk as a black man. Art is a great way to initiate change and in my view to seek to remove from TV anything that we perceive as controversial or uncomfortable is a wrong approach.

Despite the fact that many posters seem to think Rising Damp was guilty of racism, the reverse was actually true. Don Warrington's character Philip was often the target of boorish remarks by Leonard Rossiter's landlord Rigsby (not really malicious by the standards of 1970s England, just ignorant: a real 1970s racist wouldn't rent a room in his own house to a black man anyway), but it's Rigsby that we find ridiculous, not Philip. Throughout the series, Philip is consistently portrayed as the most intelligent, charming, attractive, sophisticated and grown-up of all the characters, and he's certainly no deferential Uncle Tom. ... that's not racism, is it?

Until I saw a documentary on Leonard Rossiter as a bonus on the video of The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin (one of my favorite British series), I knew nothing about Rising Damp. Based on the clips, I knew I had to see this series if it was available. Thankfully, all four series and the motion picture are on DVD. The writing is sensational and the cast is wonderful; the chemistry between them is as good as can be imagined. But as good as they all are (and it is particularly good to see some of the work of Richard Beckinsale), Rossiter is the star without question. He is brilliant; one cannot imagine anyone else playing this part. He took me totally by surprise. As good as he was in Perrin, his timing and delivery here are just amazing; he is clearly one of the great actors of his generation. These words are not written lightly.

While it is possible that this series is not seen on U.S. television because of Rigsby's racist statements, one has to look at this in the context of the seventies, when television was exposing many different realities to audiences, and they were loving it (remember the Jeffersons and Good Times?). If Archie Bunker is still to be found on television, there is no reason why Rigsby shouldn't be seen either. Another possible reason is that this is not a BBC or Granada series. At least it lives on DVD in the U.S., and if you are a British comedy fan, this is way up there.