Rigsby has a miserable Christmas with no cards, no friends, and nobody to kiss underneath his mistletoe. Classic Christmas special - first broadcast 26 December 1975.
@@jimshelley8831 totally agree. the other best comedic actors back then would be Sellers, Barker, Lowe people like that. Comparing them with comedians today is a lazy errand. But there are some about who can act Sacha Baran Cohen for example (who is a massive fan of Sellers).
@@jimshelley8831 I'd say Steve Coogan is pretty good, Paul Whitehouse too - actually, many in The Fast Show. Martin Freeman is OK I suppose. Olivia Coleman is great. Most of The Thick Of It too. Hugh Grant has come onto a game, Rafe Fiennes as well. The cast of Slow Horses largely do pretty well. Matt Berry. Kayvan Novak too. I'm running out of names now and anyway, I've just realise this is in response to @mohammaddavoudian7897. I've just stuck to British names but the point is there are loads of great comedic character actors
@meepsmusic1963 I think he played an escaped convict, if i remember correctly.I vaguely remember he was so disillusioned with the state of living in the Steptoe household he wanted to go back inside!
Yawn. Do you know how boring it is to read this comment on every upload of a sitcom from the 60s and 70s, over and over again? Yes, we geddit, you hate today and would rather live in the 70s. So do I. Now, can we move on and just enjoy the brilliant comedy without stupid comments trying to make silly political points on absolutely everything?
I watch this religiously every Christmas. Look at Rigsby's face at the start when he surveys the room and thinks about the rotten Christmas he's had! Brilliant. Rossiter was one of the greats!
At some date, British comedy died....I don't know when exactly...it was probably PC'd out of existence.......thank Heaven for RU-vid, that reminds us just how great it was then...this episode shows the great writing we had then; gone for ever I'm afraid.
@@potatoface01- I'd say around 2005 or maybe a year or two earlier, but yes, the PC Woke Brigade have ruined everything, or have maybe it's people that always insist on abiding by them who the people are to blame. Because of this I only watch DVDs and the occasional Blu-ray (usually if it's a film). How sad these modern times have become.
As an Italian that spent a part of his life in the UK I feel safe to say that Leonard Rossiter was one of the greatest commedians in the world. STILL IS. Greetings from Italy
Richard Beckinsale died very young, but he starred in two the greatest comedy series ever produced, viz, ' Rising damp ', and ' Porridge '. What a legacy he left us.
I remember one Christmas being just like Rigsby. All alone, everywhere you go everyone seems happy in couples and families. You feel like you are the only one alone. I remember thinking this has got to be the worst Christmas ever, then a few years later i spent the time with someone and realised there are a lot worse situations than being alone.
48 years ago. Fantastic comedy. No filth no swearing just great innuendo .so sad to lose Leonard and Richard. What could they have done with their careers.
Northampton, yes in those days the comedy was a mirror to the bigots i.e. like Alf Garnet and that ilk, to hopefully be laughed at and not agreed with unfortunately the narrow-minded bigoted brigade would be on the protagonist side.
Haha yes me and my brother were discussion this and how its not offensive mixed race people. Its funny cause how ridiculous narrow minded rigsby is. The joke is on him. Its not making fun of black people. Philip is the one who i intelligent and cones of better so his is it insulting to black people!?
I used to watch this as a kid with my black Dad and white Mum, we all cried our eyes out watching the inimitable Leonard Rossiter, (my Dad more than anyone). I feel so fortunate that I grew up during the heyday of British comedy.
The good old days when mixed race marriages were still the norm and no one batted an eyelid - now everybody is obsessed with race and mixed race marriages are considered "unusual"!
@@LittleKitty22 That's not my experience at all. My mother was ostracized by virtually all of her white friends. I didn't know any other mixed race couples and there were very few mixed race kids around. And back then we were called 'half-caste' by white people. You are confusing a loving family environment with the reality of the world beyond my front door. It was anything but what you described. If your experience differs I'd be curious to hear about it. I don't recall any 'good old days'.
@@LittleKitty22 Your Home Office experience doesn't surprise me. i never cease to be staggered by the ignorance and stupidity of the people getting paid to shuffle forms and process paperwork on behalf of the UK government. You came to the U.K. in the 80's yet didn't notice or weren't told of the racial unrest in many cities at that time, riots in Handsworth, Brixton, Toxteth, Moss Side, Chapeltown? Thatcher's Britain was not a nice place for people of colour. I was lucky in many ways in that I didn't grow up in an inner city 'ethnic' enclave where the police hassled people with impunity. I grew up in a white middle-class environment with a father who just happened to be a black Jamaican. I escaped the worst abuse as a kid in the rural West of England, though teachers resented me because I was generally brighter than the white kids around me, they wanted me to excel only at sports. Things changed when my family relocated to industrial West Yorkshire. We lived in an all-white town near Leeds and the level of ignorance and racism from the kids was through the roof. Teachers were generally indifferent and did nothing to stop it. i think the drift to the right in many countries has allowed the venomous resentment of racists who previously tried to hide their true feelings to spring to the surface. Brexit idiots like Farrage and the goons in government would seem to confirm that. I've lived in Japan for a long time, xenophobia is deeply embedded in this society and the country is run by people who would have been imprisoned under the de-nazification that occurred in Europe after the war. It often amuses me when I see white people here complain when they've been discriminated against (as sometimes happens), forgetting that they largely benefited from racial bias back in their homeland. Different when the boot's on the other foot.
@@kieronjohnson8834 I came to live here in the 90's, only visited in the 80's as a young teenager. At the time I thought it was great how people of different races seemed to get on well with each other, but I probably didn't see the whole picture as I was not living here then and was only in my early teens. I heard about the racial unrest once I came to live in the UK as I was living in Handsworth/Birmingham then, it wasn't a nice place then either and it still isn't. Asians hate Asians of different religions, black people and Asians hate each other - it's terrible. It's still a very rundown area or at least it was still when I last saw it in 2014. The stupidity I encountered at the Home Office is something that I have experienced everywhere in the UK and it's shocking, I have lived in several countries and nowhere have I encountered the level of stupidity I come across here on a daily basis! In any other country, people who are so incompetent would long have been fired and would in fact be unemployable! Here it's the other way round - I'm unemployable because I'm not stupid enough! No joke - unfortunately that's very much the case! I have thought this through and have wondered whether I might have it easier just pretending that I'm of low intelligence (my reasoning being, I get treated as if I were stupid anyway so why not keep them happy and pretend to indeed be retarded) - but it's far more difficult to do than one thinks! How can I for example pretend to be of very low intelligence when the way I speak alone gives away that I'm not uneducated? How should I react when people speak to me in baby language and say things like "I won't explain that to you because you wouldn't understand it anyway" - while at the same time it's them that don't understand simple sentences in English even though they are native English speakers? I could write a book full of examples of such experiences! Very true what you say about the Brexit goons. I've heard it from so many people now since this whole Brexit palaver started - "we voted for Brexit to get rid of people like you", "enjoy the flight home" and "go home"! I've heard from European nationals that got chased down the road and told to "go home"! I've heard of Muslim businesses getting vandalized! I know there are a lot of very serious problems with members of a certain ideology being above the law in the UK (I've experienced that myself as the victim of this bias as members of this ideology get actively protected to the extreme by police, so much so that I the victim got hounded by police) and white people now suffering active disadvantages and downright racism from the government, but attacking people is surely not the way forward and neither is blind hatred towards anyone who is not white! Sadly this is what we got now. A renewed race riot is not far off. As for Brexit by the way - they'll soon complain when basic workers' rights get done away with because such rights as minimum wages, paid annual leave, a welfare benefits system, data protection, the Human Rights Act etc are all in existence purely thanks to the EU! I know about Japan, never been there but yes, it's well known that they hate anyone who is not Japanese. A lot of folks who go to work or study there find it shocking and regret going there. Japan has a fascinating culture but a lot of problems with prejudice. By the way, I gotta laugh when I always hear white people say that foreigners don't integrate - when it's British people who immigrate to Spain, Egypt etc and refuse to learn the local language and only socialize with each other! Oh the irony...
@@LittleKitty22 You are mistaken about the welfare benefits system! It came into being in the 1940's, long before the EU even existed! Further to this, the British dairy farming and fishing industries have been decimated by our membership of the EU and I can assure you that is the main reason a lot of people (especially in my part of the country) voted to leave! www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/cabinetpapers/alevelstudies/1940-origins-welfare-state.htm A little light reading, none of which has any connection with the EU.
I used to think he was thinking the stuff he said when he was alone, but now I know he's really talking to himself. Haha. Because now I do the same. I rant like that. 🤣🤣
Leonard Rossiter , is a legend as a kid me and my dad would watch this and piss ourselves laughing at Rigsby , probably one of the greatest under rated comedy actors of his time . Legend in my eyes
I don’t think he was under rated, he was a very much respected actor/comedian of the time. He is still remembered today with great admiration. He was in 2 of the most popular comedy’s of the time and also great on stage.
There was still bedsits and shared rooms like this in the south of England in the 80s I know I lived in one for 3 years but absolutely loved it 🏴 still watch these repeats when there on itv3 in 2022
Leonard Rossiter just superb here. Talking to the cat at the start alone had me laughing. The mix up with the lady from Northampton was just hysterical. You just realise how much we have lost watching these. There's nothing even a tenth of good as this being made now.
I think it's mainly to do with shared cultural references that everyone understood, which makes jokes easier to understand. Now, we are culturally and ethnically fragmented as a nation, so we don't have these shared references to joke about.
Brilliantly written. How Leonard Rossiter remembered all his lines baffles me. I cant even remember a loaf tin of beans and a pint of milk when I go to the shops
My father’s job in the 70’s was as a damp proofing specialist. He had his company details advertised on his van.........woodworm, dry rot and rising damp! The amount of prank calls we used to get in the evenings asking if “Rigsby was there?” always gave us a laugh. Happy times!😂 😂 😂
@@Guapito1973 Thank you. Yes, just read 📚Leonard Rossiter's Wikipedia and he was indeed born in Liverpool. Although his Rigsby character seemed to have a bit of a Yorkshire accent. Actors are often required to speak in an accent completely different from their own.
As the girl sits there smirking, allowing Rigsby to dig his own grave, pmsl. The writers back then were so so talented, and the acting was just a joy to behold.
This was made about 40 years ago and it beats anything made today. I am suffering from broken ribs and had tears rolling down my face with laughing and trying to hold my ribs
First few minutes of this are as good as comedy gets. The monologue talking to Vienna and then the exchanges with Larry Martin, the milkman, are pure gold. Watched this countless times and always howl with laughter.
What a show! Couldn’t show this now on tv! The slightest things said and we’re up in arms about it. Dearest most handsome Richard Beckinsale 🌈🙏🏻 gone way way too soon at age of 31. I believe he was the balm for Leonard on those shows. Calmed him down from watching everything. Don is a beauty to watch. Gabrielle Rose is outstanding considering she’s Canadian. Never would know with that British accent she puts on
Classic British comedy at its best!! So glad to have grown up in the U.K. watching these comedies once a week during the evening! These were the good old days!!
Happy, happy days. And the irony is that Phillip was always the coolest, most intelligent. He wound them all up and watched them go. In today's dystopia it would be banned as racist. Yet the joke is ALWAYS against the whites. Beautiful acting. Heartwarming and hilarious. I was so lucky to have grown up in that world - so much more honest, far less materialistic...and such talent!!!
31, no way. How sad. Always watched this with my mom and dad. Pity you wont get this today with all the pc. Again, the words might be a bit choice to the youth of today but it made mainstream tv, i cannot recall people complaining and once again the the star of the show played the fool, people just laughed at his brilliance! He always made me feel out of breath.
Just imagine, if this was shown today all the race batters, David Lammy and Co, would be calling for all copies of this show to be burned and anyone still alive involved with this show to be imprisoned. The world was a better and more fun place back in the 70s and 80s.
@@derekgandy9801 Aww sweet 19 Doesn't time fly. Remember age is only a number. Im forever youthful! Well at least till l look in the mirror. Hahahaha😂😂 Moira From England. 🤗👍
I agree with you, but let's not forget he also co-starred with Paula Wilcox in a lovely comedy called The Lovers. The appeal of Richard Beckinsale was always in his gentle, innocent vulnerability.
Best comedy era, you had these faulty towers , porridge, ain't half hot mum, steptoe and sons, are you being served ,bless this house ect ect,,sad to say but we haven't got any good comedy series on t.v ,good job we can watch our favorites at a touch of a button
Hasn’t lost its comedy element after over 40 years, from an era when no one took a joke seriously. Richard Beckinsale and Leonard Rossiter sadly taken before their time.
![Rising Damp - For The Man Who Has Everything [Christmas Special 1975]](/img/logo.svg){kind=logo}
