Don Warrington

Don Warrington: 'Should Rising Damp be edited? No - its intentions were good'

He changed the face of British TV as Philip Smith in the revolutionary sitcom - but the actor's career has been far from plain sailing.

Rising Damp was more than a sitcom

Writer Eric Chappell perfectly captured our all-too-human foibles, failures and frustrations.

How we made: Rising Damp

Interviews with Don Warrington and Eric Chappell about the making of the classic sitcom.

BritBox shows Rising Damp with racist language warning

Classic 70s comedy Rising Damp will be shown on the BritBox streaming service with a warning that it contains offensive racist language. The ITV series starred Leonard Rossiter as seedy landlord Rigsby, who displays his prejudiced ignorance through racist barbs aimed at a well-spoken black tenant.

Henry IX preview

Gold's new three-part comedy Henry XI doesn't quite seem like the 'must-watch' its pedigree suggests, although it's a gently enjoyable half-hour with a handful of strong gags.

Henry IX, UK Gold, review - 'return of sitcom classics'

Clement and La Frenais' latest sitcom is stuffed with gags.

When BBC Three moved online there was a suggestion that all of the comedies that moved with the channel would appeal to a younger audience. Therefore I'm baffled to why new sitcom Sunny D debuted on the channel's online platform as it started with a Cosby Show-style opening that nobody under the age of thirty would be able to identify. Sunny D has been created by stand-up comedian Dane Baptiste who plays a fictionalised version of himself; a dissatisfied late twenty-something who still lives with his parents. Early on Dane hankers for a return to his childhood of the nineties where you could tape songs from the radio and be comforted by the goings-on on Dawson's Creek. I honestly feel that all of the nineties references would be lost on the younger demographic that BBC Three is supposedly trying to reach and I feel this one of the sitcoms main issues. In fact I do feel that Sunny D did skew very much to an audience of thirtysomethings who would recognise the references to Puff Daddy videos, Bill and Ted and Carlton Banks. In fact I think somebody at BBC Three watched this opener and told Baptiste that he needed to make Sunny D feel more contemporary hence a Kardashian gag being shoehorned into the last few minutes of the episode. But there are bigger issues with Sunny D starting with the fact that it's another sitcom in which the lead character addresses the audience directly. I always find this is a cop-out as it is much easier for Baptiste to introduce the characters by having Dane explain all of their flaws ahead of their introduction. However the biggest sin that Sunny D commits is that it's not very funny and this first episode, based around Dane's father's surprise birthday feels very old-fashioned in a lot of regards. From Dane being constantly being bothered by his extended family members to him getting drunk and accidentally proposing to his girlfriend there was nothing in Sunny D that I hadn't seen before. I also didn't find any of the characters particularly likeable and I found some of Dane's comments actively hurtful, especially through some of the insults he tossed in the direction of his twin sister. In fact the only positive I found here was the subtle performance from sitcom legend Don Warrington as Dane's softly-spoken father. Other than that this was another BBC Three sitcom that in my opinion had very little merit but then supposedly, despite all of its nineties references, Sunny D isn't a sitcom that should appeal to me anyway.

Sunny D: Dane Baptiste's sitcom is dizzyingly hilarious

In his BBC Three series, the British comedian stars as Dane, a disenchanted thirtysomething still living with his parents. It's so zippy, you can barely keep up with it.

TV preview: Sunny D, BBC Three

Dane Baptiste is a sharp, fast rising comedian and it is great to see that the BBC has given him a sitcom so early in his career. Sunny D came out of a Comedy Feed one-off and only consists of four episodes released online via iPlayer but it is still a positive step. And, more importantly, Sunny is funny.