Rising Damp out of the house with a 'flea in his ear', defending Alan, apparently because Rigsby was offended the man assumed Rigsby to be Alan's father. Alan is immature and Rigsby does become something of a strange father figure for him. Philip Smith (Don Warrington) is a second generation British African from Croydon, although for most of the series he claims to be an "African Prince" and the son of an African tribal King. Philip's lies about his 'primitive' background seem most obviously an ironic response to Rigsby's ignorant remarks, and sometimes result in moments when Rigsby's gullibility and desperation lead
Rising Damp not include the feature film version. In his introduction, Eric Chappell writes: "When I decided to publish the scripts of "Rising Damp" my first thought was, did I have them all? What followed was a desperate search in the loft amongst piles of mildewed papers until I found them.… The scripts were written in feverish haste by someone who didn’t really know what he was doing, and who was finding things out as he went along. I didn’t admit this at the time, even to myself. I took the view that sitcom writers fell into two categories: the quick and