Rising Damp de la Tour, Richard Beckinsale and Don Warrington. Rossiter played Rupert Rigsby (originally Rooksby in the stage play), the miserly, seedy, and ludicrously self-regarding landlord of a run-down Victorian townhouse who rents out his shabby bedsits to a variety of tenants. Beckinsale played Alan Moore, a long-haired, naive, good-natured and amiable medical student who occupies the top room. Frances de la Tour played Ruth Jones, a fey, whimsical spinster and college administrator who rents another room, with whom Rigsby is in love and to whom he proposes in the last episode. In the pilot episode, a new tenant arrives. Philip
Rising Damp to his belief in some aspect of Philip's lore: for example, the 'love wood' which fails to excite Miss Jones (in the 'Charisma' episode, first broadcast 1974). Philip is an intelligent, educated man (more so than the moderately educated Alan and Miss Jones), he is sophisticated and suave; this makes Rigsby suspicious of him, particularly as Miss Jones openly fancies him. Philip does not reciprocate Miss Jones's romantic interest. Croydon was not revealed to be the true birthplace of Philip until the film version of "Rising Damp" (1980). Don Warrington commented in Britain's 50 Best Sitcoms on Channel 4, that