Once again, the great character actor Leonard Rossiter stars as cheapskate boarding house landlord Rupert Rigsby, whose tenants include naive, inexperienced medical student Alan Moore (Richard Beckinsale), suave and articulate Philip Smith (Don Warrington), African royalty (with ten wives) studying in England on a student visa, and eccentric single woman Ruth Jones (Frances de la Tour, who also stars in the recommended series Flickers). In the previous series Ruth and Philip had an affair, but Philip broke it off, much to Ruth's disappointment. Though married, Rigsby has his eyes on Ruth as well, and this is carried over into the new series.

The enormous popularity and critical acclaim won by Rising Damp caught everyone off-guard. This second series was rushed into production in the fall of 1975, this in spite of the fact that Beckinsale was concurrently starring in another hugely popular comedy, Porridge (1973-1977), Rossiter was preparing to star in another seminal British sitcom, The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin (1976-79), and Frances de la Tour had stage commitments that limited her work on this series to just the first four shows. (Alan's friend Brenda, played by Gabrielle "Gay" Rose, arrives in episode four to more or less take de la Tour's place for the remaining programs.)

Nonetheless, Rising Damp misses not a beat, and each episode is a little gem. As before the heart of the show is Rossiter's incredible performance as the sputtering, hyper-active, awkward, boastful and racist Rigsby, and his continual outrage at the generational and cultural differences of his tenants. Despite obviously long takes (the show is shot on video in the British manner), Rossiter's timing is absolutely exquisite, and his subtle facial reactions and the pitch of his working class, Liverpudlian accent is frequently hilarious.

(The series also makes great use of an unusually well-trained cat, Vienna, whom Rigsby dotes over with an affection he denies his fellow human beings.)

In attempting to sell the show to American audiences, Rigsby is often likened to Archie Bunker (a character that was itself based on another classic British sitcom character), but other than the fact that both are working class racists, both the character and the feel of the show are entirely different. Rising Damp was never a message show along the lines of Norman Lear's '70s sitcoms. Rather, the show has an appeal more akin to The Honeymooners in that its characters are all poor living in faintly decrepit conditions, the action rarely leaves the confines of one or two cramped sets, with broad humor derived almost entirely from character interaction rather than story-heavy "plots." More directly, Rigsby has more in common with the hot-tempered yet loveable perennial loser Ralph Kramden than irascible Archie.

Video & Audio

Rising Damp was shot on tape and the full-frame transfers are adequate. The single-sided disc contains all seven episodes from series two, running about 25 1/2 minutes apiece, as well as the Rising Damp Christmas special, "For the Man Who Has Everything," which originally aired one week after the last Series Two episode. It runs 22 1/2 minutes. The mono audio is fine; there are no subtitle or alternate audio options.

Extra Features

The only supplements are a Series Background, duplicating the text from the Series One set, and basically worthless Cast Filmographies, with a lot less info than you can find in a 10-second search on the IMDb and elsewhere.

Parting Thoughts

Those intrigued by the show's excellent cast might want to consider starting here rather than with Series One. The writing and performances really hit their stride, and all eight shows are quite funny. Recommended.

Stuart Galbraith IV is a Kyoto-based film historian whose work includes The Emperor and the Wolf - The Lives and Films of Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune and Taschen's forthcoming Cinema Nippon. Visit Stuart's Cine Blogarama here.