Rising Damp

Rising Damp
Opening title of Series 1
Created by	Eric Chappell
Starring	Leonard Rossiter Frances de la Tour Richard Beckinsale Don Warrington
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language(s)	English
No. of series	4
No. of episodes	28 (list of episodes)
Production
Producer(s)	Yorkshire Television
Running time	30 minutes
Release
Original network	ITV
Picture format	4:3
Audio format	Mono
Original release	2 September 1974 (1974-09-02) – 9 May 1978 (1978-05-09)

Rising Damp is a British sitcom produced by Yorkshire Television for ITV. ITV originally broadcast the programme from 2 September 1974 until 9 May 1978. It was adapted for television by Eric Chappell from his 1971 stage play The Banana Box (retained as the working title early in the series). The series was the highest-ranking ITV sitcom in BBC's 100 Best Sitcoms poll of 2004.

Rising Damp starred Leonard Rossiter, Frances de la Tour, Richard Beckinsale and Don Warrington. Rossiter played Rupert Rigsby (originally Rooksby in the stage play), the miserly, seedy, and ludicrously self-regarding landlord of a run-down Victorian townhouse who rents out his shabby bedsits to a variety of tenants. Beckinsale played Alan Moore, a long-haired, naive, good-natured and amiable medical student who occupies the top room. Frances de la Tour played Ruth Jones, a fey, whimsical spinster and college administrator who rents another room, with whom Rigsby is in love and to whom he proposes in the last episode.

In the pilot episode, a new tenant arrives. Philip Smith (Don Warrington) is a planning student who claims to be the son of an African Chief. As a black man, he brings out the ill-informed fears and knee-jerk suspicions of Rigsby. However, the landlord quickly accepts his new tenant and henceforth regards him with a wary respect... wary because of Philip's intelligence and smooth manners, and especially because Miss Jones finds herself attracted to the handsome sophisticate. Of these four principal actors, only Beckinsale was a new recruit - the others had all played their roles in the original stage play.

In the first series, there was another tenant Spooner, a professional wrestler, played by Derek Newark. Rigsby gets on his bad side when he and Alan 'borrow' his clothes in the episode 'A Night Out'. Spooner made only two appearances but is mentioned in other episodes in Series 1. Other tenants occasionally move into the house but never became permanent residents, often appearing only in a single episode. Peter Bowles and Peter Jeffrey were among the actors portraying these tenants.