Although he wrote several popular television sitcom series in the 1980s, Eric Chappell, who has died aged 88, was best known for his first success, Rising Damp (1974-78), produced at Yorkshire Television and starring Leonard Rossiter as the overweening, lecherous landlord Rupert Rigsby and Frances de la Tour as one of his lodgers, Ruth Jones, in a northern university town.
Also in the cast, Richard Beckinsale, as the long-haired, borderline angelic medical student Alan Moore, and Don Warrington, as the cool and composed Philip Smith (son, he said, of an African prince), brought a further depth to the comic acting.
