Richard Beckinsale spawned a film version. Soon after, he appeared in two of British TV's most successful sitcoms at the same time. On ITV, he was playing naive medical student Alan Moore in "Rising Damp" (voted ITV's best-ever sitcom in the "Britain's Best Sitcom" poll in 2004) while also starring alongside Ronnie Barker in the BBC sitcom "Porridge" as prison inmate Lennie Godber. He also appeared in the films "Rentadick" (1972) and "Three for All" (1975) and made appearances in several other television series such as the "ITV Playhouse" episode "Last Summer" in 1976. Shortly after his 30th birthday, Beckinsale was the
Alan Moore his friend, comic-book writer Steve Moore, whom he had known since he was fourteen. Interested in writing for "2000AD", one of Britain's most prominent comic magazines, Alan Moore then submitted a script for their long running and successful series "Judge Dredd". While having no need for another writer on "Judge Dredd", which was already being written by John Wagner, "2000AD"'s editor Alan Grant saw promise in Moore's work – later remarking that "this guy's a really fucking good writer" – and instead asked him to write some short stories for the publication's "Future Shocks" series. While the first few were