"THE story has always been there, you just have to blow the dust off it.”

That’s Eric Chappell’s attitude to his first thriller, being shown at the Headgate Theatre, Colchester, later this month.

Chappell, best known for the classic sitcom, Rising Damp, has just written the pyschological thriller Dead Reckoning.

Speaking from his home in Lincolnshire, he says he had the idea for the script kicking around his head for a while but had his doubts about it.

He says: “I didn’t do it because I thought ‘I’m a comedy writer’. But when I thought about it, there are a lot of similarities between comedy and thriller writing.

“In comedy you make the audience laugh by surprising them. Likewise in thrillers, it’s the surprises that make people jump out of their seats.

“The only problem is that with comedy, you can measure the audience reaction with laughs.

“You can’t measure silence when you’re doing a thriller. I just have to listen for the sounds of sweets being dropped on the floor or watch for people falling asleep.”

Chappell managed to keep the attention of TV bosses for 20 years and wrote over 200 TV comedy scripts.

His first staged play was the Banana Box, that went on to become Rising Damp, for which he is best known. But he also wrote Home to Roost, Duty Free and Only When I Laugh.

Today he has retired from writing for TV and concentrates on theatre, which he says has both benefits and pitfalls.

“I certainly miss the money,” the 76-year-old says. “But with television your show would go out and you’d maybe get two phone calls about it. Perhaps three if it got the number one ratings.

“If one of my plays is put on in a small theatre in front of 160 people the buzz and feedback is so much more exciting. People like it or they don’t like it, but you get a reaction from them.”

Speaking about modern television, Chappell says he feels the art of scriptwriting has been lost.

He says: “You don’t get well structured situation comedies any more. It seems to be comedians doing the shows and not writers. Either that, or someone straight out of university who has done a course in writing and away they go.”

But having left that world behind, Chappell is now happy to be out the rat race and to concentrate on writing plays.

Dead Reckoning tells the story of Mr Todd who arrives at artist Tony Reed’s house and offers to kill his first wife’s murderer. After agreeing, Reed and his second wife, Megan, find themselves entering a terrifying nightmare from which there seems no escape.

The play is presented by Southend-based Outloud Productions.

Tickets are still available for the Headgate show on November 17, priced £8.50. They can be booked by calling 01206 336000.