Classic Television - Rising Damp

UK - Situation Comedy - ITV 1974 - 1978

The inhabitants of a seedy boarding house suffer the intrusions of its even seedier owner.

Rupert Rigsby, grubby, lecherous, ignorant, nosey and tight-fisted (and those are just his good points) is the owner of a horribly run-down northern boarding house that is the home to an odd mix of lodgers. Rigsby lives on the ground floor with his cat, Vienna. Upstairs, long-haired Alan, a medical student, shares on spartan room with Philip, the son of an African tribal chief, and another room is taken by frustrated spinster Miss Jones, a university administrator. Although liberally treated to decrepit furnishings and the eponymous rising damp, the one thing Rigsby's paying guests do not receive is privacy. Given the opportunity to catch the lodgers 'at it', the snooping Rigsby does not hesitate to barge in. Whatever secrets lie in their personal lives, Rigsby prises them out into the open, and however great their hopes and dreams Rigsby is always ready to sneer and jeer at them. His own ambition, though, is to share a night of torrid passion with Miss Jones but, like his other plans, it is never realized.

This series sprang from a one-off play entitled 'The Banana Box' (in which the landlord was called Rooksby) and gave Leonard Rossiter the first chance to show off his acclaimed comic timing. Indeed, most of the series' humour came from his sharp, glib delivery. A film version was released in 1980.

Discuss this programme on the More TV forum