My debt to Mr Rigsby

In 1974, Rising Damp was my first taste of writing a series for TV. I was hardly prepared for the hurly-burly of situation comedy, where shows had to be written in a fortnight, rehearsed in a week, recorded in an hour and a half, and put out in 25 minutes.

A few months before, I’d been an auditor with the Electricity Board. Most people thought I was mad when I left to become a playwright, but were too polite to say. I had taken this decision on the strength of my first play – – which in 1973 had an all-too-brief run in the West End. was the play that inspired . Although there