User Reviews

I had a conversation with work colleagues about this very episode, it is very funny, has some amazingly good one liners.

It's one episode that personifies the show to perfection. It's too easy to dismiss this show as racist, it isn't, it contains a character that is racist, Rigsby sprouts his uneducated, ridiculous views, but is always the one to look the fool, and look moronic for having such beliefs.

Here Rigsby believes he can go without food for a bet, but of course he's not fully up to he challenge, there are several good jokes throughout, but as is always the case, the joke is really on Rigsby.

It's very funny, 8/10.

Sometimes we are shocked when we look back at our much-loved sitcoms of the past and realize just how racist they actually were.

Such is the case with "Food, Glorious Food," an episode from the second series of RISING DAMP where Rigsby (Leonard Rossiter) speculates on his racial superiority as a former "Desert Rat" able to withstand long periods of hunger, as opposed to the black people who protect their sacred cows, eat animals and indulge in a little cannibalism whenever they feel peckish.

All of these jokes are taken in good fun, of course, especially when Philip (Don Warrington) exposes Rigsby's pretensions by challenging him to a 48-hour fast. Rigsby cannot endure the suffering and predictably - and aptly - ends up eating food intended for the gutter, a suitable comment on his warped racial politics.

Brilliantly directed by Ronnie Baxter, the episode shows Rossiter off at his comic best, the master of the double-take, especially when he discovers something about his intended fast that he does not expect. Philip has a fine old time taunting his landlord about the prospect of rickets and scurvy, even though we know that nothing will actually happen to the old skinflint, except further suffering.

Yet there still remains the disturbing presence of superiority within the boarding-house, as if Rigsby insists on his color as a justification to abuse others, even though it is intended as a humorous jibe. One person's joke is another person's form of insult.

Miss Jones is collecting money for charity for the starving of Africa.

Rigsby complains to Alan that he is too skint to donate anything. He then gets into an argument with Philip that dealing with starvation is just a case of mind over matter. After all Rigsby starved for several days when he was in the army.

Philip throws down a bet that Rigsby takes up. However starving for 48 hours with just water to drink proves more difficult than he imagined. Phillip has taken all the food away, even the cat's.

This was a good episode with several laughs as Rigsby desperately looks for food. Starvation also means he almost charms the pant off Miss Jones.

As an ITV sitcom of the 1970s it also has its share of casual racism. I like to think we have moved on from those days. Looking at Tory cabinet ministers views on foreign aid. We clearly have not.