Eric Chappell Rising Damp Dead: Obituary, Cause Of Death, Wife, Children

At the age of 88, Eric Chappell, the writer of some of ITV’s most popular sitcoms, including Rising Damp, Only When I Laugh, and Duty-Free, died on Thursday, April 21, 2022. No information on the cause of death was given

Reece Dinsdale, who starred alongside the late John Thaw in Chappell’s sitcom Home to Roost, broke the news of his death. “Thank you for everything you did for me, Sir,” Dinsdale wrote on Twitter. Your scripts were a lot of fun to act out. It was a fantastic time!”

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

In his final years, Eric Chappell kept a low-key personal life away from the spotlight.

He told Comedy in a 2013 interview that he would read his plays to his wife Muriel, who would “yawn as she read them.” According to an interview with Penny Black Music, the comedian leaves behind at least two children. He may or may not have still been married at the time of his death.