Rising Damp - Series 1
First broadcast in 1974, the British sitcomRising Dampwas an instant and enduring success. It starred Leonard Rossiter as the miserly and lovelorn landlord Rigsby who is constantly needling young lodger Alan (Richard Beckinsale), a science student whose long hair and earrings are symptomatic to Rigsby of the modern age. He's also in love with Frances De La Tour's dowdy spinster Miss Jones, though his tentative advances are forever rebuffed. She in turn carries a torch for Philip (Don Warrington), the elegant son of an African chief who also resides at Rigsby Towers.Some aspects ofRising Damphave not aged well, principally Rigsby's stream of racist jibes at Philip. Although these were doubtless well-meant and supposed to illustrate Rigsby's foolish bigotry, one suspects that it might have been a convenient cover for 1970s audiences to enjoy racist humor. However, Rossiter's Rigsby--stuttering, stammering, bent perpetually over backwards--remains a great comic creation, embodying all the festering prejudices, small-mindedness and self-delusion of the lower middle class Little Englander.--David Stubbs