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Frances de la Tour interview: From Shakespeare to Rising Damp, the actress has lit up stage and TV for 50 years - and found new fans in Vicious

Back in the 1970s, the tv sitcom ‘rising damp’ brought frances de la tour such recognition that she could be forgiven if she’d never been able to move on. but at 70, she continues to flourish - and to beguile, article bookmarked.

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It takes approximately 90 seconds to register that Frances de la Tour is a shocking flirt. As she perches beside me on the sofa in the first-floor bar of the Ivy Club in Soho, her eyes lock on to mine, her expressive mouth widens into a cheerfully on-for-it grin and, as I babble through a chaotic question about her recent adventures, she cuts straight across it and says, fingering the sleeve of my suit: "This is a nice piece of schmatter – is it linen or cotton?"

This year, in which she turns 71, she celebrates 50 years of stage acting at the highest level – at the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre and in London's West End. She has played classic roles from Chekhov, Webster, Shaw, Albee and Eugene O'Neill as well as the Bard, while descending, from time to time, to the less rarefied level of television comedy. Her major strength is to radiate a slightly weary, seen-it-all romanticism, expressing a perfect balance of disappointment and optimism via that uniquely rich contralto voice. She's equally at home playing tragedy or comedy – you could say that she had a head start, given that she possesses both the most melancholy eyes and the most dazzling smile in British theatre.

In the public consciousness, she is stuck fast in the 1970s with her role in Rising Damp as Miss Ruth Jones, the poodle-haired and breathless object of Leonard Rossiter's urgent desire and seedy gallantry. Their double-act entered the collective cultural memory and stayed there, a fact that does not please De la Tour.

"It's the tombstone thing, isn't it?" she says. "I just know that, when I die, the papers will say, 'Rising Damp Woman Kicks the Bucket'."

To be fair, I say, the 1980 movie version won you Best Actress at the Evening Standard Film Awards. "Oh yes," she says, with a bitter laugh. "I remember. The Standard people got in touch and said, 'You're up for Best Actress in the Film Awards.' I said, 'But I haven't made a film this year.' They said, 'It's for Rising Damp.' I said, 'Oh, that.' It made me laugh so much."

Thirty-five years later, she's playing a different quality of sex object in another TV sitcom, Vicious. The show stars two veteran stage knights, Sir Ian McKellen and Sir Derek Jacobi as Freddie and Stuart, a long-term gay couple and sparring partners in a battle of theatrical bitchiness that amuses or horrifies everyone drawn into its orbit. De la Tour plays Violet Crosby, the neighbour who pops in every day (as they do in sitcom-land) to exchange brittle banter with the senior queens and utter cougarish remarks of sleek seductiveness at Ash (Iwan Rheon), the handsome (and straight) 22-year-old boy upstairs.

Remarkably, the show was the joint creation of Mark Ravenhill, the controversial playwright behind Shopping and Fucking and Mother Clap's Molly House, and Gary Janetti, the American TV writer and producer behind Family Guy and Will & Grace. Where fans of both writers might anticipate super-explicit or super-brittle dialogue, Vicious is rather sweetly old-fashioned in its gay bitchery and non-PC idiom. McKellen and Jacobi swish about with a camp extravagance that Kenneth Williams might have found a bit extreme, and relish the exchanges. When Violet is told that there's a strange man (namely Ash) in the gay pair's lavatory, she cries: "You let a complete stranger use your loo? What if he comes out of there and rapes me?" McKellen's mouth twitches in a moue of scorn. "Let's cross that bridge when we come to it," he murmurs.

"I was absolutely delighted to be asked to do Vicious," says De la Tour, "and the people of my generation who were in the studio audience were ever so chuffed to see me." She put her hand modestly on her breast. "I got an entrance round!" Was Gary Janetti a natural to write a sitcom about elderly British gays? "I don't know how he did it," she says, "because it's very English and he is sooo American. But he knows about comedy and the timing of a line, even though he's not an actor."

British critics were divided about the merits of Vicious. The Daily Mail dubbed McKellen and Jacobi "the Steptoe and Son of the gay and thespian community," but the Daily Telegraph called the show "the least funny new comedy in recent years" – and the art critic Brian Sewell described it as "a spiteful parody that could not have been nastier had it been devised and written by a malevolent and recriminatory heterosexual." Astonishingly, though, it went down very well in America.

"The critics here said it was too camp, like Are You Being Served?" De la Tour says. "But over there it broke new ground, because it was about the relationship between two older gay men. It's funny, but it's about a serious gay relationship, and that hadn't been done before. It went out on public TV there, and now there's sponsorship money going into it. That's how much they like it."

The character of Violet is intriguing. She clearly loves the warring partners, but is no fag-hag. She tells them she's disgusted by their physical relationship, and is sharply critical about their toxic tiffs. But she can't keep away. Even when dating unsuitable men whom she's met online, she keeps Freddie and Stuart informed of every twist. "I don't know why Violet and Stuart and Freddie love each other," says De la Tour. "They're awful to her; they'll say, 'You can't have any food' or 'It's about time you left' – but they always welcome her. They provide the sanctuary in her life and the show is all about that."

Violet became more shocking as the first series progressed. In one episode, five million viewers watched De la Tour, now 70, dressed in a leather gimp suit and handcuffed to a bed by an unscrupulous Argentinian lover. In the last episode, when the boy Ash commiserates with Violet and assures her that there's definitely a Big Love out there for her in the world somewhere, Violet slams him against a wall and thanks him with a full-on snog. "Ed [Bye, the director] told me they wanted to show that Violet would go for it," says De la Tour simply. "So I went for it."

In the second series, we'll discover that Violet has married a mystery man, > and that she has a sister (played by Celia Imrie). The episodes will move beyond the cosy interior of Freddie and Stuart's flat, using outside locations in East London. "It was exhausting," says De la Tour, theatrically. "It was so easy in the first series, it was all, 'Darling, come in, sit down, have some tea, leave.' In the second, we had to learn ballroom dancing..."

She was born in 1944 in Bovingdon, Hertfordshire. Her father, Charles, a film-maker and scriptwriter, was immensely proud of his family's French connections and, like Tess Durbeyfield's dad in Tess of the D'Urbevilles, liked to accentuate the Gallic strain. Which is why Frances found herself at school at London's Lycée Francais when she was five. She didn't share her father's Francophilia.

"My father was romantic about the name De la Tour; he thought it was aristocratic. He said, 'You ought to be able to speak French, to live up to your name.' But I didn't want to be at the Lycée. It was pretty frightening. You walked in and everything was in French. Sit down in French, have lunch in French, learn English in French. In geography, I knew all about the Massif Central, but nothing about Marble Arch. But really it could have been any school – I was miserable because I just wanted to be with my mum.

"I learned that, like most families, ours was completely mixed. My mother's mother was Irish, Cathleen O'Neill from County Cork. She couldn't read, and she married a wild Greek Macedonian. She was very down-to-earth. She'd say, I don't know why you're at the Lycée, it's only because your father wanted you to go there. I think she loved my dad, but they separated when I was 12. She remarried and I went to a bad private school in Cookham, a little village in Berkshire, where Stanley Spencer the artist came knocking at the door of the house because he liked to know who the neighbours were."

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Her way in to acting was through poetry recitals. De la Tour paints a cruelly unvarnished picture of her young self. "In those days they had elocution classes run by eccentric women who loved acting and the theatre. One was Rita Melene, whom I'm forever thankful to, because she clapped eyes on this shy, gawky, unable to speak, am-I-English-am-I-French, funny little thing with specs and bands on the teeth, and she must have thought, 'Take away the glasses and maybe there's something nice inside.' She entered me for these poetry competitions, judged by people like [the actress] Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies. I loved doing poetry. I felt safe because it didn't take too long; you could stand on that stage and dare to speak, and be off a minute later."

What was her voice like before the elocution lessons? "Like Miss Jones's," she says sardonically. "Much higher than it is now." Her characteristic slow drawl, she says, "was all about fear of speaking French or English. You'd approach it gingerly." Did her mother encourage her? "She tried to help me, but she was probably too dominant. She was very beautiful and I was in awe of her, but it didn't make me want to be like her."

Instead, she "withdrew into boyfriends". She had lots of young squeezes between the ages of 14 and 17, and attributes her success to her grandmother's advice. "She told me, 'You got to smell good, you got to laugh, got to make them laugh, and to listen, even if they are boring. But most of all, you got to smell good.' I was wearing Arpege by Lanvin at 16."

Thus equipped to take on the world, she went to drama school at 17, and joined the RSC in 1965 at 21. She had several small roles in the next five years, then hit the jackpot in 1970, as part of the company who staged Peter Brook's A Midsummer Night's Dream – the production with the white box, the swings, trapezes, stilts, spinning plates and other manifestations of magic. De la Tour was comedy gold as Helena, derangedly in love with Demetrius. "Ben Kingsley played Demetrius," she said fondly. "He was 27, I was 26. In one scene we did together, I had to keep him onstage at all costs. He kept moving offstage – so I just rugby-tackled him. We'd spent 10 weeks rehearsing the play, and were so familiar with the text that whatever we did physically seemed perfectly okay."

She was, she says, extremely nervous. "Why? Because I was thinking, 'I'm doing Shakespeare. I'm playing a huge part with a visionary director. It's in rhyming couplets. I'm 26. I don't know who I am or what's happening…' But Peter was so loving, very sweet and funny and nice to me. He said, 'Whatever insecurities you're feeling right now, then so is Helena.' At one point, I even sang a few notes – although I can't sing – just to free myself. He liked it so much, he kept it in."

The mid-1960s were a heady time to be a young British actor. Frances de la Tour saw Laurence Olivier and Maggie Smith in their finest hour, giving their Othello and Desdemona at the Old Vic. At the same time, the RSC were putting on The Wars of the Roses, a dizzying mash-up of Shakespeare's history plays. At the Aldwych, Peter Daubeny's World Theatre season was in full swing, headed by the Berliner Ensemble.

"It was an astonishing time," she breathes, "to be 19, just about to leave drama school, and going to see every single production we could get to, in the upper circle." Which actresses did she admire? "Oh, Maggie Smith – she was absolutely astonishing in The Beaux' Stratagem, so pretty and she radiated wit in the old sense, meaning intelligence. I saw Vanessa [Redgrave] doing As You Like It and David Warner as Hamlet – and suddenly, it wasn't all about glamorous theatre any more. It was real, with bright lights and no make-up. It was the end of the old school of theatre."

It was also time for a change of acting style. While De la Tour was appearing as Rosalind in As You Like It at the Oxford Playhouse, and Isabella in The White Devil at the Old Vic, she was also appearing in television comedy. She co-starred in the original 1971 cast of The Banana Box, a play by Ian Chappell about a rundown Yorkshire townhouse converted into bedsits by the landlord – one Rupert Rooksby, a grubby, intrusive, miserly, lecherous, right-wing bigot who constantly invades the privacy of his tenants. They include a posh, dreamy spinster and university administrator, and a suave black student who claims to be the son of an African chief. Leonard Rossiter played Rooksby, Don Warrington played the black student and Frances de la Tour the whimsical love object.

After its West End run, a forgotten producer suggested it might make a good sitcom, and Rising Damp was born. With Richard Beckinsale added to the cast as the medical student Alan, and Rossiter's horrible-but-fascinating character re-named Rigsby, it aired in 1974, ran to four series until 1978, and was the highest-ranking ITV sitcom in BBC's 100 Best Sitcoms poll of 2004.

Did De la Tour feel at the time that a sitcom was a bit beneath an RSC actress? "We were just doing it for the money," she says. "I certainly needed the money and if you're offered a TV sitcom, you say 'Yeah, fine.' It was actually a great era for sitcoms. There were at least four other good ones around at the time. But," she adds with a touch of pride amidst her disapproval of the subject, "about 20 million people watched ours."

So she became a TV star! How did that feel? Her lovely eyes frown. "I made a real point," she says evenly, "of having nothing to do with celebrity. There was a show on television called Celebrity Squares, which I was offered. I said, 'I'm not doing it, I'm not doing anything about celebrity.' I went straight into more plays. I did lots of things on the fringe, not earning anything, to continue doing the work that I was trained for."

We seem to have hit an awkwardly serious point in our jolly discussion. I ask about the first scenes she shared onstage with Rossiter. Had his comic timing struck her as a bit…

"Haven't we exhausted Rising Damp by now?" she asks, in that flat rhetorical way that demands the answer "Yes."

I move on. Is she, I ask, a comic actress who can turn her hand to tragedy, or an essentially tragic actress who can sometimes forget herself enough to do comedy? And which is harder?

She recoils as if I'd asked her to recite the Sanskrit alphabet. "How can you throw that at me?" she says crossly. "What kind of question is that? It's like asking, 'Could you please tell me about the essence of quantum physics? And while you're at it, could you explain gravity?" All I meant (I say) was, is it hard to do both?

She seems mollified. "My answer to that is: if you can do comedy, you can do tragedy. If you can do tragedy, you can't necessarily do comedy."

She has won three Olivier Awards: Best Actress for Duet for One (written by her ex-husband Tom Kempinski, by whom she has two grown-up children) in 1980; Best Actress in O'Neill's A Moon for the Misbegotten in 1983; Best Supporting Actress for When She Danced in 1992. But the stage role for which she's been most celebrated is Mrs Lintott, the wry, caustic, funny, close-to-retirement schoolmistress in The History Boys, Alan Bennett's comic-poignant play about a class of teenagers being prepared for Oxbridge by teachers with contrasting attitudes to education.

"Ten years ago, I was in Sydney doing The Dance of Death with Ian McKellen," she recalls. "There were lots of posters for Alan's series of monologues, Talking Heads, with Maggie Smith and Maggie Tyzack. I remember feeling miffed and thinking, 'Why have I never been in an Alan Bennett play?' Well, I went back to the hotel and there was a script from Nick Hytner, who'd recently taken over at the National. It was The History Boys. Before even reading it properly, I'd said yes. And I learned later that Alan had written in the margin of the first script, 'Frances de la Tour to play Mrs Lintott?' They knew before I knew that it was right for me. Sometimes it takes another person to know what you should play."

Had she invented a back-story for Mrs Lintott? "She's honest, I think. She has this line: 'I went to Durham University and I loved it. I had my first pizza there. Other things too, of course, but it's the pizza that stands out.' That says everything about her."

The History Boys was an unexpected smash hit on Broadway. It defied logic that Manhattan playgoers could be beguiled by a drama about British teaching methods that looked kindly upon casual paedophilia and featured a scene conducted entirely in French. De la Tour won a Tony Award for her portrayal of Mrs Lintott. "I absolutely adored it in America," she says, eyes glittering. "Because they didn't know who I was, they thought they'd discovered me. I was like an adopted child. Because New Yorkers are New Yorkers, they'd pick me up in the street and embrace me. Not just the gay community – there were straight guys as well, people so smitten with the show, the characters, and Richard [Griffiths] playing Hector. Paul Newman saw it four times."

She went on chat shows, and found herself fighting off frock designers who wanted her to wear their creations to the Tonys. "I had to have a dress made for me, and I wore black diamonds – something I'd never do for the Oliviers. Of course, you had to make sure to send the diamonds back afterwards…"

Whereupon she rises to her feet and swans off for a flirtatious cigarette up on the roof terrace with her friend Marc Sinden, son of the late Donald. She's too cool and clever to be a diva, but she's an authentic star. And she's moved several aeons beyond the days of Miss Ruth Jones, her seedy Northern bedsit and the wooing strategies of Mr Rupert Rigsby.

The new series of 'Vicious' starts Monday 1 June at 9pm on ITV1

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Rising Damp

The course of true love never runs smooth in rising damp.

Without doubt ITV’s finest sitcom and definitely worthy of it’s classic status.

Rising Damp ran for twenty eight episodes over four series between 1974 and 1978, the series was produced for ITV by Yorkshire Television.

From Rooksby to Rigsby

Before it was a TV series, Rising Damp actually began life as a stage play in 1971 entitled ‘The Banana Box’. Leonard Rossiter, Don Warrington and Francis De La Tour all played their respective characters in the play, although Rigsby was Rooksby.

The play was being performed at the Newcastle Theatre Royal in 1973 when then Head of Light Entertainment at Yorkshire Television: John Duncan, was invited to see a performance of the play.  Duncan saw its potential as a sitcom immediately.

Yorkshire Television had commissioned a series of half-hour sitcom pilots of which Rising Damp became one of.  These ‘pilots’ were scheduled for broadcast in the autumn of 1974.

By this time Duncan Wood a more experienced producer from the BBC had taken over from John Duncan.  The series of six pilots were broadcast as scheduled in the autumn of 1974 and along with Oh No It’s Selwyn Frogitt, Rising Damp was picked up for a full series.

On being adapted for television Richard Beckinsale became the newcomer to the cast, having not appeared in the Banana Boat.

As the series progressed a number of brief and sometimes temporary cast changes were made.  Richard Beckinsale did not appear at all in the fourth series due to West End theatre commitments. Eric Chappell wrote some lines to explain Alan’s absence into the intended first episode ‘Fire and Brimstone’, he had passed his exams to become a doctor.  However, the lines were cut when it was decided to broadcast the second episode ‘Hello Young Lovers’ as the first episode instead.

Frances De La Tour temporarily left the series in 1975, after appearing in four episodes of the second series, also due to theatre commitments and was ‘replaced’ by Gabrielle Rose for three episodes as new tenant Brenda (she also appeared in La Tour’s last episode of 1975 “Moonlight and Roses”), whilst Henry McGee also stood in for one episode as new tenant Seymour. Frances De La Tour returned for the final two series.

In the 2004 BBC poll to find the 100 best sitcoms Rising Damp was the highest rating ITV sitcom.

Rupert Rigsby is a miserly, seedy, and ludicrously self-regarding landlord that rents out shabby bedsits to a variety of tenants.

In the pilot episode Rigsby is looking for a new tennant to fill his vacant room.  Enter Phillip Smith, a planning student.  Only one problem he’s black and as such brings about the ill-informed fears and knee-jerk suspicions of Rigsby.  Phillip claims to be the son of an African chief which brought about much humour within the show.

However, the landlord quickly accepted his new tenant and henceforth regarded him with a wary respect… wary because of Philip’s intelligence, smooth manners and especially because Miss Jones was attracted to the handsome sophisticate.

The show revolved the day to day lives of the tennants of Rigsby’s seedy boarding house, Rigsby’s constant interference with his tenants lives and their constant ability to get one up on him.  There is also the sub plot of Rigsby’s amorous intentions to Miss Jones.

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Rigsby – Leonard Rossiter Miss Jones – Frances De La Tour Philip – Don Warrington Alan – Richard Beckinsale

Channel: ITV Written By: Eric Chapell Produced By: Yorkshire Television for ITV Original Transmission Dates: 2nd September 1974 – 9th May 1978

Spin Offs Rising Damp The Movie was released in 1980

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RISING DAMP (1974-78) (Full Series)

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Rising Damp (Tour – Salford)

Rising Damp, the BAFTA award winning 1970s comedy series, is back, and it’s on stage.

Using Eric Chappell’s inimitable dialogue, it tells of the goings on in self-opinionated Rigsby’s seedy boarding house in a northern University town.

The cast bring out the funny side of their characters though playing them straight. The only female tenant, Miss Jones, a university administrator, is the apple of Rigbsy’s eye though his adoration is unrequited. There’s a great scene when he tries to win her affections, with Amanda Hadingue delightful as the naive Miss Jones.

The other two tenants, Alan and Philip, are respectively studying medicine and town and country planning.

Philip is black and far superior to Rigsby in intellect. He suffers barbed racist remarks from him yet manages to make the bigoted landlord feel inferior and insecure. Cornelius Macarthy conveys a man of stature even though he isn’t the African chief he pretends to be (which is probably why Ruth fancies him).

Alan is gauche, and socially inept. He also fancies Ruth. Paul Morse captures this perfectly.

But it is Stephen Chapman’s leading performance as Rupert Rigsby that steals the show. He adroitly follows his predecessor Leonard Rossiter in a role that demands a lot from any actor, even though, unfortunately, we don’t always catch every word.

Director Don Warrington, who formerly played Philip, brings out the best in his cast, making much of the humour and plentiful one liners.

– Julia Taylor

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Rising Damp writer Eric Chappell dies at 88

Tributes paid to ‘one of the all-time greats’, who also wrote Only When I Laugh and Duty Free

Eric Chappell, the writer of some of ITV’s most popular sitcoms, including Rising Damp, Only When I Laugh and Duty Free, has died at the age of 88.

His death was revealed by the actor Reece Dinsdale, who starred alongside the late John Thaw in Chappell’s sitcom Home to Roost. Dinsdale wrote on Twitter : “Thank you for everything you did for me, Sir … your scripts were a complete joy to play. Great times!”

Chappell was a prolific writer for theatre and television but his crowning achievement was Rising Damp, described as ITV’s finest ever sitcom by Mark Lewisohn , the author of the Radio Times Guide to comedy.

It ran between 1974 and 1978 and had a magnificent central cast of four: Leonard Rossiter as the miserly, manic landlord Rigsby , Frances de la Tour as the dreamy romantic Miss Jones, Don Warrington as the suave Philip, who claims to be the son of an African chief, and Richard Beckinsale as the naive and good-natured medical student Alan.

Rising Damp regularly attracted audiences of 18 million. Its many fans include the Guardian’s film editor, Catherine Shoard, who wrote in 2009 : “At its best, it bears comparison with Beckett and Pinter.”

Chappell told the Guardian last year that he had been concerned that Rigsby’s prejudicial attitude towards Philip might be misinterpreted as something to be celebrated or mimicked, as had happened with Johnny Speight’s Alf Garnett.

The quality of the writing meant that was not the case. Chappell said he hoped he “had written an intelligent comedy about race relations”.

Jed Mercurio, the writer of Line of Duty, described Chappell as “one of the all-time greats. His brilliant comedies entertained millions, week in week out, for decades.”

Chappell was born in Grantham, Lincolnshire, in September 1933, and worked as an auditor for the East Midlands Electricity Board for 22 years. After several of his novels were rejected by publishers he decided to write plays, recognising that dialogue was his great skill.

In his first play, The Banana Box, which became Rising Damp, Wilfrid Brambell – then famous for Steptoe and Son – played the Rigsby character on stage.

Chappell’s other sitcom credits included The Bounder , which starred Peter Bowles, who died five weeks ago . It was written with Bowles in mind after the success of Only When I Laugh, which starred Bowles, James Bolam and Christopher Strauli as seemingly permanent, hypochondriac hospital patients and Richard Wilson as their longsuffering consultant.

Tim Reid, who co-created and co-wrote the BBC show Car Share, described Chappell as one of the greatest sitcom writers. “Worthy of a place amongst the greats for creating Rupert Rigsby alone,” he said. “But Only When I Laugh, often under-rated in my view, is not a bad follow up to Rising Damp. Hats off, sir.”

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Go beneath the streets on this tour of the spectacular, mind-bending Moscow Metro! Be awed by architecture and spot the Propaganda , then hear soviet stories from a local in the know. Finish it all up above ground, looking up to Stalins skyscrapers, and get the inside scoop on whats gone on behind those walls.

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We begin our Moscow tour beneath the city, exploring the underground palace of the Moscow Metro. From the Square of Revolution station, famous for its huge statues of soviet people (an armed soldier, a farmer with a rooster, a warrior, and more), we’ll move onto some of the most significant stations, where impressive mosaics, columns, and chandeliers will boggle your eyes! Moreover, these stations reveal a big part of soviet reality — the walls depict plenty of Propaganda , with party leaders looking down from images on the walls. Your local guide will share personal stories of his/her family from USSR times, giving you insight into Russia’s complicated past and present. Then we’re coming back up to street level, where we’ll take a break and refuel with some Russian fast food: traditional pancakes, called bliny. And then, stomachs satiated, we are ready to move forward! We’ll take the eco-friendly electric trolleybus, with a route along the Moscow Garden Ring. Used mainly by Russian babushkas(grannies) during the day, the trolleybus hits peak hours in the mornings and evenings, when many locals use it going to and from their days. Our first stop will be the Aviator’s House, one of Stalin’s Seven Sisters, followed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs — and you’ll hear the legends of what has gone on inside the walls. Throughout your Moscow tour, you’ll learn curious facts from soviet history while seeing how Russia exists now, 25 years after the USSR.

Local English-speaking guide

Pancake snack and drink

Additional food and drinks

Tickets for public transport

Souvenirs and items of a personal nature

Tips and gratuities for the guide

Additional Info

Confirmation will be received at time of booking

Dress standard: Please wear comfortable shoes for walking. For your Urban Adventure you will be in a small group of a maximum of 12 people

Traveler Reviews

This tour exceeded our expectations. Nikolai (Nick), our tour guide, was very knowledgeable, thorough, and has a great personality. He didn't take shortcuts and really covered everything that was on the agenda in great detail. We saw beautiful metro stations and learned the history behind them, including many of the murals and designs.

We did the tour with Anna her knowledge and understanding of the History surrounding the metro brought the tour alive. Well done Anna!

This tour was amazing!

Anna was a great tour guide. She gave us heaps of interesting information, was very friendly, and very kindly showed us how to get to our next tour.

Amazing beauty and history.

An excellent tour helped by an absolutely amazing guide. Anna gave a great insight into the history of the metro helped by additional material she had prepared.

great tour and guide - thanks again

great will do it again, Miriam ke was very good as a guide she has lived here all here life so knew every interesting detail.a good day

• Preplanned tours
• Daytrips out of Moscow
• Themed tours
• Customized tours
• St. Petersburg

Moscow Metro

The Moscow Metro Tour is included in most guided tours’ itineraries. Opened in 1935, under Stalin’s regime, the metro was not only meant to solve transport problems, but also was hailed as “a people’s palace”. Every station you will see during your Moscow metro tour looks like a palace room. There are bright paintings, mosaics, stained glass, bronze statues… Our Moscow metro tour includes the most impressive stations best architects and designers worked at - Ploshchad Revolutsii, Mayakovskaya, Komsomolskaya, Kievskaya, Novoslobodskaya and some others.

What is the kremlin in russia?

The guide will not only help you navigate the metro, but will also provide you with fascinating background tales for the images you see and a history of each station.

And there some stories to be told during the Moscow metro tour! The deepest station - Park Pobedy - is 84 metres under the ground with the world longest escalator of 140 meters. Parts of the so-called Metro-2, a secret strategic system of underground tunnels, was used for its construction.

During the Second World War the metro itself became a strategic asset: it was turned into the city's biggest bomb-shelter and one of the stations even became a library. 217 children were born here in 1941-1942! The metro is the most effective means of transport in the capital.

There are almost 200 stations 196 at the moment and trains run every 90 seconds! The guide of your Moscow metro tour can explain to you how to buy tickets and find your way if you plan to get around by yourself.

RISING DAMP The Movie! The Making of…

• The OMJ! Magazine Questionnaire 1995
• DEREK NEWARK – Hard as Nails
• EPISODE GUIDE – Quick Overview
• CREATING AN EPISODE – A Weekly Schedule.

RISING DAMP: YTV 1975 INTERVIEWS

The following interviews were issued in a Press Pack release by YTV, shortly after the release of Rising Damp.

Approximately SEPTEMBER – NOVEMBER 1975.

ERIC CHAPPELL

Grantham-born and still living there – although he moved for a period to Hinckley – ERIC CHAPPELL wrote “The Banana Box” (from which ‘Rising Damp’ stems) as his first play.

It was originally presented at Hampstead Theatre Club for a Sunday night performance in November, 1970, and was subsequently staged at The Phoenix, Leicester, The Theatre Royal, Newcastle and Oxford Playhouse, prior to its West End run at the Apollo in the summer of 1974.

Since then he has had a number of his plays televised, including “The Spanish Dancers” (HTV) and “We’re Strangers Here” (ATV). He also wrote the successful ATV situation comedy series about office workers, “The Squirrels”, starring Bernard Hepton and Ken Jones. He has a number of plays presented on radio.

Eric, who gave up his job as an auditor with the Electricity Board in May last year to become a full-time writer, has won this year’s PYE Colour Television Award for the Most Promising New Television Writer.

A modest man, Eric commented that when he embarked on his playwriting career: “Nothing eventful has happened to me much since school. In fact, when I got married the local paper recorded, to my undying shame, ‘Local Footballer Weds’. This was a significant judgement since I hadn’t kicked a ball for ten years!”

Perhaps, in the light of recent events – not to mention accolades, the local paper will now be able to accord Eric with a somewhat grander claim to distinction.

LEONARD ROSSITER

For after two series Rigsby’s creator, award winning Liverpool-born actor LEONARD ROSSITER may decide to “kill him off”.

Leonard, who has “always avoided taking on long series like the plague”, says firmly that two important considerations would have to be met before he would entertain a third series of Rising Damp, much as he had enjoyed playing the role.

“I was in ‘Z-Cars’ back in the early 1960s, and they asked me to become a regular in the series”, he recalled. “But I turned it down because I felt then, as I still do, that to go on playing the same role year in and year out could become very boring. I am one of those people who derive much delight in doing different things. It’s like someone who is in an office all the time: I’m sure many office workers yearn to get out and do something different now and again. But having said that,” he went on, “it can be argued that if you are doing good work why not go on doing it whilst it remains good? So, before doing more episodes of Rising Damp, I would have to be satisfied that, one, the writer feels quite happy to go on writing, confident that he can maintain the standard, and, two, that I would continue to work with some, if not all, the same people. I wouldn’t want to start again with an entirely different team.”

He pointed out that the strength of Rising Damp lay, to a large extent, in its setting – the run-down boarding house. It was not one of those comedies which could spin off into other locations with any degree of success. Consequently, it made great demands on the writer, who had to exploit situations virtually within the precincts of the boarding house.

Whether Rigsby returns or not, however, Leonard has plenty of work in the pipeline to keep him busy for the time being.

Over the years Leonard has led an extremely busy career in television, films and on the stage. His television work until recently was mostly straight drama; he had occasional comedy scripts offered but turned them all down because none amounted to anything much. Then came three worthwhile television comedy offers within a couple of weeks, among them Rising Damp.

Despite the sudden abundance of comedy, however, Leonard does not intend to concentrate too much on this sphere of television. As he has already stressed, he likes to “play the field”. “I do about three plays a year as a rule; I like to do films now and again – who doesn’t? – and I like to vary my television roles”, he declares.

The reason he decided to do Rising Damp, he added, was that he was in The Banana Box, the stage play on which the television series is based.

A turning point in his career came in 1959, when he joined the Bristol Old Vic, where he stayed for two years. Then began a long period of television and film work; nearly a score of films include A Kind of Loving, Billy Liar, This Sporting Life, King Rat, 2001 A Space Odyssey, Otley, Deadlier than the Male, Oliver!, Luther and The Luck of Barry Lyndon.

Recent television includes HTV’s crime drama, Thick as Thieves, which won the Royal Television Society’s Pye Oscar for the best regional production, Loch Lomond (ATV), The Magistrate and The Baby’s Name Being Kitchener (BBC) and Johnny Speight’s If There Weren’t any Blacks you’d Have to Invent Them. Since the first Rising Damp series, he has also done a BBC Television play, After the Solo, written by John Challen, who wrote The Headmaster. In the play, which will be screened shortly, Leonard plays the father of a boy soprano who sings in a local school concert.

In 1963, Leonard played the original version of David Turner’s Semi Detached at the Music Box Theatre, New York. In recent years he has played regularly on the London stage. Credits include; The Strange Case of Martin Richter and Disabled at Hampstead Theatre Club, The Heretic (Duke of York’s Theatre), The Caretaker (Mermaid) and Arturo Ui (Saville), for which he received both the Variety Club of Great Britain and the Plays and Players Awards for best stage actor of 1970, and the Scottish Television Award for the best stage actor for his Edinburgh Festival performance in the same play.

After starring, as the landlord, in The Banana Box at the Apollo 18 months ago, he went into a John Antrobus play The Looneys at the Hampstead Theatre Club last autumn.

Leonard is married to actress Gillian Raine, and they have one daughter, Camilla.

RICHARD BECKINSALE

In fact, Richard is 28 and he contends; “I’m getting a bit old for this type of role. I want to move on and play older parts.” Tall, dark and amiable in real life, Richard has had a remarkably successful career to date in television, films and on the stage. Nearly everything he has been in – including Rising Damp, The Lovers and the current BBC comedy, Porridge, with Ronnie Barker, has hit the popularity high spots.

He attributes this to a mixture of being choosy and good luck. “I have always been selective, especially where comedy series are concerned”, Richard points out. “I have been lucky in that I accepted three offers in television comedy within a relatively short space of time which have become hits. But I have also turned down several offers which I feel pretty sure would not have been hits.”

Richard hails proudly from Nottingham – “real D.H. Lawrence country”, he calls it. He says his grandfather was a miner who died of pneumonia poaching ducks, and his great-grandfather was married to a Burmese princess whom he met in India. Before starting his acting career he was one of 600 applicants for 30 places at RADA – Ri–hard worked as an upholsterer and a clerk in a pipes factory.

Richard Beckinsale’s stage, television, radio and film credits since 1970 include:

The Blind Beauty, BBC Radio

Tales of Piccadilly, London Weekend

Elephant Eggs in a Rhubarb Tree, Thames – six programmes

Justice, Yorkshire Television

Detective Waiting, Thames – Armchair Theatre

Give and Take, Abacus Productions

Consequences, London Weekend

Rentasleuth, Virgin Films

Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, Thames

The Donati Conspiracy, BBC

Truscott’s Luck, Southern Television

Two and Two Make Sex, Ray Cooney Productions

Porridge, BBC

Rising Damp, Yorkshire Television

The Lovers, Granada Television

Bloomers, BBC

Red Saturday, unfinished 1979

In January, Richard is due to appear at the Mermaid Theatre, London, in Funny Peculiar, a play by Mike Scott which will be directed by Liverpool director Alan Dosser.

He and actress Judy Loe, whom he met in repertory at Crewe, live in Twickenham and they have a two-year old daughter, Katie.

Richard in an interview, once said, “When I decided to become an actor, it wasn’t actually to make money or to make a living. I wanted to be an actor because I wanted to act. I’ve always had this desire to communicate a great kind of beauty to other people, like a vicar or priest does, to transport people to the world where I live. I just appreciate living on earth at an artistic level. There’s a great deal of satisfaction in living this way. “It’s like love, I suppose. There are no words for it, apart from love – to give people love, to teach people love. I think it is probably the main driving force in my life.”

Richard’s busy career leaves him little time for hobbies or other interests, although he does like dog racing. A successful punter, he has had some quite substantial wins – he frequents the Wimbledon track when he is in town.

“I won £60 the last time I was there”, he confided.

FRANCES DE LA TOUR

“I may have had at one time, but I certainly haven’t now”, declares Frances, a keen member of Equity, the Theatrical Union. “I was brought up a little like her – she has middle class values and these were instilled into me when I was young – but there the similarity ends. The only thing I can say about the character is that I have been able to draw upon my own background experience in creating her.”

Active, as she puts it, in “the defence of democratic rights in the Union”, Frances is invariably made a ‘dep’ (deputy – the chosen representative of the artists to negotiate with management) when she is working at a theatre for any length of time. And despite her instant success as Ruth in the first series of Rising Damp, Frances still prefers to work in the theatre, where the roots of her career lie.

“I have enjoyed doing Rising Damp, as it has opened up a new dimension to me.”, she says. “I like television work in some respects, but I don’t care for it in general. Conditions for work are very hard, especially in situation comedy when you have to do an episode a week, and there is a very different atmosphere to the theatre.

“Even straight drama on television – she has appeared in plays for BBC television – has a different atmosphere to situation comedy. For one thing, you have longer to rehearse the single play as a rule – usually two or three weeks.

“All kinds of television offers have come my way since the first Rising Damp series, but stage offers still tend to come from my past work in the theatre.”

Frances, in fact, leaves Rising Damp after the fourth episode because of theatre commitments.

The part of Ruth was originally created by Frances in the Apollo Theatre production of The Banana Box, on which the Yorkshire Television production is based.

Frances also appeared in a number of films, including “The Buttercup Chain”, “Country Dance”, “Every Home Should Have One”, and “Our Miss Fred”. Other television includes “Crime of Passion”, “History”, a BBC “Play for Today”, and an appearance in “The Marty Feldman Show”.

She is married to actor Tom Kempinski, and they have a two-year-old daughter, Tamasin.

DON WARRINGTON

For Don, single and living in Hampstead, is naturally quiet spoken and inclined to be reserved. But the similarity ends there. “I certainly enjoy playing Philip, but I haven’t a lot in common with the character”, he contends. Philip is really a parody on the popular impression of the tribal warrior who comes straight into civilisation from the jungle – albeit appearing rather | more civilised than many of those around him. The parody is naturally emphasised by Rigsby’s prejudices.

GAY ROSE (Brenda)

First appears in Episode 4 “Moonlight & Roses’, 2nd Series; Episode 6 “The Last of the Big Spenders’, 2nd Series; Episode 7 “Things That Go Bump in the Night” and The Christmas Special 1975 “For The Man Who has Everything’.

Gay has also appeared twice with Birmingham Rep, the most recent occasion in “Oh Fair Jerusalem”, and she has been in one West End production. In a few weeks’ time she will be touring in “The Merchant of Venice”.

Her ambitions, career-wise, are modest: “I would like to be a good and successful actress, although not necessarily a star just in a position where I can turn down the occasional role if I feel like it”.

Her hobbies are swimming and ski-ing – “When I can afford it”.

• THE BANANA BOX: WHAT THE PAPERS SAID
• ERIC CHAPPELL – THE OMJ! MAGAZINE INTERVIEW 1995

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THE OMJ! QUESTIONNAIRE – From 1995

THE CREW – Overview

Moscow Metro Tour

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Description

Moscow metro private tours.

• 2-hour tour $87:  10 Must-See Moscow Metro stations with hotel pick-up and drop-off
• 3-hour tour $137:  20 Must-See Moscow Metro stations with Russian lunch in beautifully-decorated Metro Diner + hotel pick-up and drop off. 
• Metro pass is included in the price of both tours.

Highlight of Metro Tour

• Visit 10 must-see stations of Moscow metro on 2-hr tour and 20 Metro stations on 3-hr tour, including grand Komsomolskaya station with its distinctive Baroque décor, aristocratic Mayakovskaya station with Soviet mosaics, legendary Revolution Square station with 72 bronze sculptures and more!
• Explore Museum of Moscow Metro and learn a ton of technical and historical facts;
• Listen to the secrets about the Metro-2, a secret line supposedly used by the government and KGB;
• Experience a selection of most striking features of Moscow Metro hidden from most tourists and even locals;
• Discover the underground treasure of Russian Soviet past – from mosaics to bronzes, paintings, marble arches, stained glass and even paleontological elements;
• Learn fun stories and myths about Coffee Ring, Zodiac signs of Moscow Metro and more;
• Admire Soviet-era architecture of pre- and post- World War II perious;
• Enjoy panoramic views of Sparrow Hills from Luzhniki Metro Bridge – MetroMost, the only station of Moscow Metro located over water and the highest station above ground level;
• If lucky, catch a unique «Aquarelle Train» – a wheeled picture gallery, brightly painted with images of peony, chrysanthemums, daisies, sunflowers and each car unit is unique;
• Become an expert at navigating the legendary Moscow Metro system;
• Have fun time with a very friendly local;
• + Atmospheric Metro lunch in Moscow’s the only Metro Diner (included in a 3-hr tour)

Hotel Pick-up

Metro stations:.

Komsomolskaya

Novoslobodskaya

Prospekt Mira

Belorusskaya

Mayakovskaya

Novokuznetskaya

Revolution Square

Sparrow Hills

+ for 3-hour tour

Victory Park

Slavic Boulevard

Vystavochnaya

Dostoevskaya

Elektrozavodskaya

Partizanskaya

Museum of Moscow Metro

• Drop-off  at your hotel, Novodevichy Convent, Sparrow Hills or any place you wish
• + Russian lunch  in Metro Diner with artistic metro-style interior for 3-hour tour

Fun facts from our Moscow Metro Tours:

From the very first days of its existence, the Moscow Metro was the object of civil defense, used as a bomb shelter, and designed as a defense for a possible attack on the Soviet Union.

At a depth of 50 to 120 meters lies the second, the coded system of Metro-2 of Moscow subway, which is equipped with everything you need, from food storage to the nuclear button.

According to some sources, the total length of Metro-2 reaches over 150 kilometers.

The Museum was opened on Sportivnaya metro station on November 6, 1967. It features the most interesting models of trains and stations.

Coffee Ring

The first scheme of Moscow Metro looked like a bunch of separate lines. Listen to a myth about Joseph Stalin and the main brown line of Moscow Metro.

Zodiac Metro

According to some astrologers, each of the 12 stops of the Moscow Ring Line corresponds to a particular sign of the zodiac and divides the city into astrological sector.

Astrologers believe that being in a particular zadiac sector of Moscow for a long time, you attract certain energy and events into your life.

Paleontological finds 

Red marble walls of some of the Metro stations hide in themselves petrified inhabitants of ancient seas. Try and find some!

• Every day each car in  Moscow metro passes  more than 600 km, which is the distance from Moscow to St. Petersburg.
• Moscow subway system is the  5th in the intensity  of use (after the subways of Beijing, Tokyo, Seoul and Shanghai).
• The interval in the movement of trains in rush hour is  90 seconds .

What you get:

• + A friend in Moscow.
• + Private & customized Moscow tour.
• + An exciting pastime, not just boring history lessons.
• + An authentic experience of local life.
• + Flexibility during the walking tour: changes can be made at any time to suit individual preferences.
• + Amazing deals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner in the very best cafes & restaurants. Discounts on weekdays (Mon-Fri).
• + A photo session amongst spectacular Moscow scenery that can be treasured for a lifetime.
• + Good value for souvenirs, taxis, and hotels.
• + Expert advice on what to do, where to go, and how to make the most of your time in Moscow.

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Tour Details

Moscow metro tour: architectural styles of the subway.

Duration: 2 hours

Categories: Culture & History, Sightseeing

This metro tour of Russia’s capital and most populous city, Moscow, is your chance to get a unique insight into the beautiful and impressive architecture of the city's underground stations. Admire their marble walls and high ceilings representing Stalin's desire for glory after World War 2, and see first-hand how the interiors change with the rise of new political eras. Your guide will lead you through the complex network, which is one of the most heavily used rapid transit systems worldwide, with over two billion travelers in 2011.

Opened in 1935, Moscow’s underground system, now 190 miles (305 km) long with 185 stations, is today one the largest and most heavily used rapid transit systems in the world. On this Moscow metro tour, discover the impressive architecture of Moscow’s underground stations and learn how they reflect the Soviet era.

Getting around by metro, your local guide will take you through parts of Moscow’s infamous history. Stop at stations built during the time of the USSR (Soviet Union) that are praised as one of the most extravagant architectural projects from Stalin’s time. After World War 2, he was keen on establishing Stalinist architecture to represent his rising regime and a recognized empire. Learn how when his successor started the de-Stalinization of the former Soviet Union in 1953, the extravagancy of the architecture was toned down.

Discover how the unique character of each station reflected several different eras. While stations like Kievskaya and Slavyansky Bulvar have pompous halls and high stucco ceilings brimming with extravagant decorations, those built later, like Volzhskaya, are lightly adorned with sparse furnishings. Architect Alexey Dushkin and painter Alexander Deyneka were just two of the many artists who made these magnificent landmarks possible.

Revel in Moscow's glory days, as well as the years of scarcity, on this fascinating Moscow metro experience. Conclude your tour at one of the central stations in Moscow. If you're lucky, you may even find the secret entrance to the unconfirmed Metro-2, a parallel underground system used by the government -- a mystery which has neither been denied nor confirmed today.

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Culture Shock Rating

We have a wide range of tours designed to give you an insight into the destination you're travelling in and there is something for everybody. The culture shock ratings considers the destination visited, transport used, activities undertaken and that "Wow, I'm really not at home now!" factor. While generalisations are always tricky, a summary of our gradings is as follows…

This is the least confronting of our tour range. Transport used on the trip is either private or a very comfortable public option, the activities included are usually iconic sites and locations that are not all too confronting.

The tour can include a mix of private and public transport providing a level of comfort that is slightly below what you would experience at home. Sites visited are usually iconic sites, tours can also include market visits, visits to communities etc that provide the traveller with a fantastic insight into destination.

Expect to rough it for parts of this tour, whether it's a packed public bus where you are forced to stand, a visit to a local market, a local community, you are sure to have an experience that is very different from what you're used to at home.

The comforts of your home town and the environment you are used to are more of a rarity. Expect some challenging transport options, visits to local sites and areas that don't resemble anything at home.

You're out there in the global community! You are likely to be exposed to the elements, travel in whatever means of transport is available and basically take it as it comes, whatever comes! It can be tough.

Physical Rating

Our physical rating gives you an idea of how much huffing and puffing you can expect on the tour. While generalisations are always tricky, a summary of our gradings is as follows…

These tours have very limited physical activity. Usually climbing in and out of the transport provided, walking through sites, markets etc included in the itinerary.

These tours have a bit of physical activity but nothing that should challenge you too much. This could be climbing on and off public transport through to a walk through the destination you're travelling in, they can include walking only tours or a combination of walking and transport.

These tours involve a bit of physical activity from walking up and down hills in the destination you're travelling in or the surrounding areas. Climbing on and off local transport or riding a bike up to 30 kms along predominantly flat terrain or jumping in a kayak for a gentle paddle on flat water.

These Tours will provide you with some solid physical activity. Whether its bike riding, walking, trekking, kayaking or riding on public transport you will need to have a good level of fitness to enjoy this tour.

Be prepared for some serious physical activity. These tours are our most challenging and involve some serious walking, hiking or bike riding. Can involve step climbs by foot or pedal and some challenging public transport options in the destination you are travelling.

Luxury Rating

Some trips are like a stroll on the beach, while others have you trekking alpine passes. Some of you thrive on camping out on the savannah, while others may prefer a hot shower and a comfortable bed in a lodge. Follow the grading systems below to find the right trip for you.

To help you choose the trip that's right for you, we've broken all of our trips down into four service levels. Measuring the comfort level of the accommodation and transport. So whether you're travelling on a budget and want to save money by using public transport, or prefer upgraded accommodation and are happy to pay a little more, then we have a level for you.

This is grassroots travel at its most interesting

Authentic experiences with some of the comforts of home

For those who like to travel in comfort

All the unique experiences wrapped up with a gold ribbon