Classic
comedy is a phrase that is rarely dished out these days –usually it
is BBC that picks up the accolade.
But here just in time for Christmas is the complete works of a classic comedy from the commercial television stables, including an episode that never made the screens.
In today’s World of political correctness, Rising Damp is a series that could never be made today, but there is no denying that it still remains just as funny as it was when it first hit the screens over 25 years ago.
Rising Damp – The Complete Works is the complete series of the 70’s sitcom with genius comic Rupert Rigsby (LEONARD ROSSITER), as the moth-eaten landlord of a run-down boarding house based in the north. Exclusive to the DVD digipack, is the previously unreleased episode ‘Stand Up and Be Counted based on a by-election, which was initially scrapped after an MP launched defamation proceedings against the show.
This has now been restored from the Granada archives and for the first time this really is The Complete Works.
Rising Damp became a massive hit in the mid 70’s for Yorkshire Television, with huge audiences who enjoyed the comic misadventures of the embittered and dishevelled landlord, Rigsby, as he spied on the very innocent private lives of his assorted long suffering tenants.
Among his tenants, who put up with his overbearing ways, include Philip (DON WARRINGTON), the proud but rather smug son of an African tribal chief, and Miss Jones (FRANCES DE LA TOUR), the University administrator and the reluctant object of Rigsby’s affections.
Both had already starred with Rossiter in the stage play ‘The Banana Box’, from which the television series was based on, by creator Eric Chappell. Naive medical student Alan, played by RICHARD BECKINSALE, was the only new resident to join the block, and clash with his money grabbing and lecherous landlord.
Now critically acclaimed as one of the great British comedies, the scripts bring the group of no-hopers together, not in misery, given their damp dank surroundings, but humour, under the umbrella of Rigsby’s own self importance and his constant misinterpretations of situations.
It was the humour that revolved around the frustrated landlord’s own prejudices concerning sex, race, and his views on student life and anything unfamiliar that crossed his path.
Not the kind of things that you could get away with today, but as you will see, the tenants gave as good as they got towards their Landlord showing him up for the bumbling buffoon that he really was.
And interwoven into this, for further effect, were Rigsby’s relentless scheming to seduce his spinster tenant, Miss Jones and the confessions of his inner most fears and suspicions, to his cat Vienna, that assist in creating such unforgettable episodes, finally bought together in Rising Damp - The Complete Works.
Rising Damp – The Complete Works” is available on DVD from Granada Video/VCI now £39.99
