Rising Damp Page 17

Quote: lofthouse @ 26th August 2024, 1:52 PM

Yes series 4 was OK but definitely the weakest - and you definitely miss Beckinsale

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It's very uneven, Ep3 was awful, making the cardinal error of showing his wife, who was even more awful. But it's followed by the classic Pink Carnations, as good as most of the early eps.

Quote: lofthouse @ 26th August 2024, 1:52 PM

More odd is that they made the movie - after his death

Don't know what they were thinking...

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Easy money, low budget film with most of it recycled word for word from the TV episodes meaning no expensive rewrite or time waiting for a new script, the main actors will have it off to a tee and would still be popular with fans having not long finished on TV. All involved need to earn a living and you don't turn offers like this down, even when one of them is no more. I thought Alan's replacement was sympathetically low key as well.

Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ 6th October 2024, 3:13 PM

It's very uneven, Ep3 was awful, making the cardinal error of showing his wife, who was even more awful.

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Oh no, no, no, NO!! That episode "Great Expectations" was BRILLIANT!!!!!

Frances de la Tour posing as his chain smoking loud mouthed wife had me in stitches, especially when Veronica the real wife turned up and Miss Jones thought she was the aunt - a superb piece of script writing so beautifully played out by all concerned.

VERY FUNNY!!

Hmm, I thought the wife was a lurid cartoon myself, but like I said the real crime was in ever showing her. It seemed to me that Chappell was running out of enough good material to fill the final series so followed this one up with the best of the lot so we'd quickly forget the awful one before (Miss Jones' flourish aside).

She only appeared in that one episode, which to me fitted the bill and storyline, and I still maintain it was one of the better episodes - Andrew Sachs in there too, though not so prominent

Quote: Billy Bunter @ 4th September 2024, 6:11 PM

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Quote: a plate @ 2nd September 2024, 1:32 AM

Liked the new 'comedy rewind' article about Rising Damp (by Chris Hallam) A few behind-the-scenes bits of trivia I didn't know.

https://www.comedy.co.uk/features/comedy-rewind/rising-damp/

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Yes good article, just read it now as I had in my mind its 50th was in December when the series proper started, but obviously the pilot's airing on 2nd Sept is seen as the start date, even though it wasn't titled Rising Damp and Rigsby had a different name. So I'm still claiming 13th Dec as its official birthday.

Anyway, glad to see the author of the tribute praise the quality of acting, which in my view has been largely overlooked apart from Rossiter's amazing turn, almost certainly due it being an ITV sitcom with the usual snobbish TV critics putting anything it does below the standard of BBC shows. All four of them were stage trained, and knew how to lift their delivery for the audience with their expressiveness.

You hardly see that on modern TV comedies, the acting is so naturalistic to the point of looking casual, it's not real acting in my book. It definitely added to the funniness of Rising Damp.

Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ 14th October 2024, 10:34 AM

Yes good article, just read it now as I had in my mind its 50th was in December when the series proper started, but obviously the pilot's airing on 2nd Sept is seen as the start date, even though it wasn't titled Rising Damp and Rigsby had a different name. So I'm still claiming 13th Dec as its official birthday.

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Neither of those assertions are correct, and Series 1 Episode 1 picks up directly where the Pilot leaves off. I think you're getting names confused with the earlier play.

No I'm thinking of what it was broadcast as, being one of six YTV half hour comedies much like BBC's Comedy Playhouse pilots, with one more of the six picked up for a series titled Oh No It's Selwyn Froggit ( just 1 t).

This one aired as The New Tenant. I wasn't sure if the landlord was yet called Rigsby or Rooksby still (from the play TBB) but its production title was Rooksby, although it seems his newly rehearsed script name was now Rigsby even though the show's title on the clapperboard was Rooksby.

It still aired under the title Rising Damp, even though it was part of a season called Yorkshire Comedy Pilots. I've got a copy of the original TV Times right here and it appears no differently to any episode of the resulting series proper.

Obviously that must be correct then so why give a pilot two titles (RD & TNT) ((or three if you include Rooksby which there is a broadcast production screen photo of on line as proof)) ? 🤔

Well it was billed as Rising Damp in the format it normally would as a series/programme name. TVT didn't bill the episode title explicitly, but it was certainly settled on as The New Tenant.

Not sure why it was produced with the Rooksby title - possibly just a codename from the early development stages, as clearly they had everything else in order, the character renamed, no other reason given for it to be that.