The Brittas Empire
Gordon Brittas is the manager of the Whitbury-Newtown Leisure Centre. Despite his good intentions, everything seems to go wrong when he's around, despite the best efforts of the center staff and his long-suffering wife, Helen.
Genre: Comedy
Cast:Chris Barrie , Harriet Thorpe , Michael Burns , Tim Marriott , Russell Porter , Pippa Haywood , Jill Greenacre , Judy Flynn , Julia St John , Stephen Churchett , Anouschka Menzies , Andrée Bernard , Jonathon Norriss , David Crean , Frances Low , Roy Alon , Richard Braine , Jo Kendall
S1.E1 ∙ Laying the Foundations
Well-meaning perfectionist and incurable bumbling busybody Gordon Brittas moves into Whitbury as manager of the brand new municipal leisure center. After annoying his new neighbors almost immediately, he enters the center, not without infuriating the builders so they stop finishing work on it. Inside his totally scientific, alas reality-unrelated roster is just the first on an endless list of ill-considered decisions with even more disastrous consequences then a pessimist could expect, all the series long.
S1.E2 ∙ Opening Day
Mr. Brittas takes charge of preparations for the official opening of Whitbury Leisure Center with a royal visit: the Duchess of Kent. Alas, the builders hate Gordon so much that they don't bother to tell him that the brand-new pool is leaking. The heating is operated by Boilerman Barnes (retired from the Navy), who takes Brittas' instructions to heat the pool 'at warp speed' literally. The electrician who should have taken care of a malfunctioning automatic door gets sent away and a well-meaning Boy Scout is commandeered in his place. The Duchess is walking straight into a war zone.
S1.E3 ∙ Bye Bye Baby
Gordon takes charge at reception, but once he sends Carole away, who is desperately worried about her baby and hoping for a reconciliation with her husband Derrick--everything goes wrong. Schoolboy Peter Philips inquires whether his tie was found, but Gordon's 'methodical' approach causes a huge, noisy queue to build up behind the boy. The desperate boy pretends to have found it, only to be reported to the police as a budding thief. Ken Owen comes to give a lecture on stress management, but with Gordon as the slide-show operator, Ken fights the urge to go for his throat. A mix-up with another baby causes maternal panic and paternal desertion.
S1.E4 ∙ Underwater Wedding
Gordon explains to job applicant Beverly Pierson how noble and important the leisure center is, but her motivation melts away as she witnesses what it's like. A pair of diving-club members booked the swimming pool for a wet wedding, but the best man dropped the ring and got stuck. An old guy in a wheelchair is drunk and running wild, even crashing the cardboard-box barrier mounted on Brittas' orders, using a chemical which reacts to water.
S1.E5 ∙ Stop Thief
Gordon closes the leisure center for a whole day to make the staff fight the 'crime wave' of petty thefts. Treating everyone as suspects stirs commotion, and Danny and Mandy, feeling targeted, expose themselves as ex-cons. Gordon sets a trap, which only makes it worse. Helen needs a prescription for more depression pills, but Dr. Grey insists he knows more about the cause of her problems, so he brings over Gordon, and a short visit is enough for stronger pills.
S1.E6 ∙ Assassin
Gordon realizes the center is running below a quarter of its capacity, but keeps offering ludicrously complicated formulas and incentive schemes, which the staff are determined not to win--poor Gavin's good behavior may land him in a restaurant with Gordon. Meanwhile, St. Mary's parish choirmaster Larry Whittaker is determined to get rid of the man whose membership wrecked the award-winning ensemble, but it goes wrong for both of them and for innocent bystanders.
S2.E1 ∙ Back from the Dead
The Leisure Centre staff are happy and business booms when it is thought that Mr. Brittas has been killed while on a course in Bulgaria. However, Brittas returns from the dead to cause havoc, and Carole is determined to save her baby Ben from his zombie.
S2.E2 ∙ Temple of the Body
Gordon briefs the staff about his latest obsession: preventing any appearance of unprofessional intimacy, only thinking of members of the opposite sex (to gay mates Tim and Gavin's relief) and calling Carole, who is pregnant again, too old to be in danger--too many more-attractive women are around. His attempts to observe matters with Colin's help go wrong from the start: drilling peep-holes, which unfortunately look into the ladies' locker-room and showers.
S2.E3 ∙ An Inspector Calls
When an inspection of the leisure center is announced, even Gordon realizes the abysmal attendance figures probably mean the ax, so he prepares himself to take the blame and resign. Laura feels for him and convinces the staff to hold back on the anonymous management assessment. A pigeon spraying droppings all over a sports court and the usual bumbling seem to seal Brittas' fate. Meanwhile Gordon's anniversary present that he bought for his wife (a motorbike instead of the car she wanted for ten years), made her leave him without telling him that she wants a divorce. Yet when Mr. Kitson arrives, no bad results can distract his utter admiration for a fellow perfectionist, being a former -presumably unsuccessful- LC manager.
S2.E4 ∙ Set in Concrete
Gordon managed to annoy the Rotarians at a dinner to the extent that they set his feet in concrete. He enlists private consultant Graham Hanson's help to investigate if the constant aggravation in the Leisure Centre--no doubt his work--is the result of a syndrome attributed to the building, but he falls victim to Gordon's inverse Midas touch. Carole is horrified to discover a mouse--and worse, that her baby Ben prefers its company to hers. Laura manages to teach Gordon how to read between the lines of female 'considerate' responses; he sorts out the anniversary-gift fiasco, but he also assumes that Laura's advice also applies to men.
S2.E5 ∙ Mums and Dads
Gordon arranged for Russian pianist Vladimir Petrov to give his first free-world concert as a charity benefit in the leisure center. He ordered a grand piano, but first gets an old one--his mother's--delivered by his widower father Jim Brittas, who actually admires his son. Then the concert model and pianist arrive, neither at all safe anywhere near Gordon. However Vlad is enchanted by a mysterious pianist, none other then Carole, and the inevitable accident leads to 'slight' program changes.
S2.E6 ∙ Safety First
Gordon closes the center for three days to put the staff through exasperating emergency simulations: the first fire drill has a 82% casualty rate, the next scenarios will be worse! Meanwhile he talks Carol out of betting £100 on the horse Tim's track tip suggested, so she puts her bag with the cash in his office. Unfortunately, Helen hides the smoldering cigarette Gavin -uneasy with her physical intimacy- gave her in the bag too. She's fuming when Gordon must go back on his promise to spend his lunch hour with her. While Gordon leads Councilor Dapping to where he wants an unnecessary larger fire-escape, the money in the bag catches fire, with terrible consequences.
S2.E7 ∙ New Generations
For once (in a million times), Gordon doesn't get a chance to mess things up himself; natural fertility does. Colin has brought a case of herbs, which gets eaten by pregnant Carole and a farmer's cow. The herb is later found to induce labor, and proves quite efficient in both cases, so the vet has a double job. Meanwhile Helen tells Laura she's pregnant, with twins like Carole, which is a hereditary trait in the Brittas family--and no coincidence.
S3.E1 ∙ The Trial
Gordon's obsession with cleanliness and dealing properly with lost property interferes with an elaborate drug deal in the Leisure Centre, making him the target of suspicion and eventually a trial.
S3.E2 ∙ That Creeping Feeling
When Laura explains to Gordon that the staff has sent him to 'Coventry' (as he never noticed), because of his insensitive abuse of security recordings to criticize their 'unappealing physical appearance', he hires psychologist Dr. Matthews to diagnose the source of aggravation in the center. Before the doc proves it's Gordon, horror strikes in the form of a live tarantula sent to Brittas from a millionaire with a grudge. The nearly fatal giant arachnid, however, proves helpful for the greatest local hazard.
S3.E3 ∙ Laura's Leaving
Helen panics to hear Laura is away postulating for a managers post in London. Meanwhile maths teacher Jackson's patience is tested when he tries to get a cup of coffee from the vending machine, given the paperwork and camera check for a 5 p. refund. Colin has a concussion, so his way of following simplified instructions is even more dangerous for a whole pool of Pentecostals holding a baptism ceremony. Carole's illicit baby-care drives Brittas to provoke the whole staff.
S3.E4 ∙ Two Little Boys
Helen is desperate to get rid of Gordon's non-identical twin brother, Reverend Horatio Brittas, who was scheduled to become dean of Beirut, but turns to his twin with a vocational crisis. Alas, there is another explosive problem with gas leaking from a tank. Meanwhile, a whole busload of youngsters from another leisure center are visiting Whitbury--to score points in a game using Brittas-isms.
S3.E5 ∙ Sex, Lies & Red Tape
Brittas has the whole staff raise £2500 for a new trampoline via various sponsored activities, such as hunky Tim allowing people to throw wet sponges at him. Of course, things go wrong: Colin's juggling lands a ball in a high-tension wire. Meanwhile, Helen runs around scared to death after relapsing her worst pregnancy habit: shoplifting. Gordon's own sponsored silence-marathon is challenged to the limit when a certain Michael T. Farrell III from Chicago, Illinois, USA insists on talking to assistant-manager Laura on her birthday, even it it means paying the whole target sum in cash just to get in...but why?
S3.E6 ∙ The Stuff of Dreams
Brittas prepares for Elderly Week by disguising himself as an obnoxious senior citizen--but is soon recognized by most of the staff members, who next receive questionnaires (except Laura, who is 'too old and has the wrong attitude') to find out who might be fit to succeed him eventually. Helen insists that Laura should drive her to hospital instead of Gordon, but fate decides that the daddy-to-be gets to drive mummy-to-be after all. Of course he sticks to every rule in the book, but of course they have an accident anyway and get stranded in the High Street.
S4.E1 ∙ Not a Good Day...
Veteran running star Sebastian Coe, MP, comes to the Leisure Centre for a Grand Opening, but not only does he discover that they've only named a toilet after him, but everybody keeps running off, chasing an 8-year-old boy for not paying for a 20p ticket; Coe even gets caught with his foot in a dead man's bicycle lock when he must urgently get to Parliament. Meanwhile Carole's toddler son Ben escapes by sawing his way out of the cupboard she keeps him in while trying desperately to apply Brittas' endless tariff rules, so she and Helen bait a trap-cage for him. The arrested boy's father mobilizes his Ancient Warfare Society friends to actually lay siege on the Centre with him as the lead centurion, and the police refuse to return for at least a week. Gordon refuses to surrender the boy, so the Ancient troops take and damage the centre by force.
S4.E2 ∙ The Christening
Proud new father Gordon Brittas makes the whole staff practice in detail the perfect christening service for his twin sons, but his vicar brother Horatio, who is to preside, tells him he fell in love, and before he can elaborate, Helen--who was too busy choosing a hat to notice earlier--bursts in announcing that she has forgotten the boys somewhere, so everyone is sent out searching. Horatio's ladyfriend, Philippa Belmont, infuriates both Helen and Gordon during her very first conversations with them. The babies are found and the christening gets underway, but while he's looking for Philippa's lost ring, Gordon must advise Horatio whether to propose marriage, and Carole confesses to what she did to the cake.
S4.E3 ∙ Biggles Tells a Lie
On a rare day when Gordon Brittas is out, everybody is surprised to see his office taken by 'manager' Colin Weatherby, almost unrecognizably well-dressed and odor-free. The reason sits there too: his daughter Stephanie from a brief affair, visiting for the first time ever, all the way from Tasmania, expecting the perfect father as he wrote her over the years to have various talents and occupations, such as an author pen-name and a TV show. Brittas was just returning a pen he had taken with him, but can't resist helping Tim with a boiler problem--which happens to be receptionist Carole's missing secret kitten Biggles. Meanwhile, the staff has seen a photograph of Helen that someone sent to Plaything Magazine; when Gavin tries to burn it in the boiler, Gordon finds it--and sees Colin's manager nameplate on his desk.
S4.E4 ∙ Mr Brittas Changes Trains
Gordon is most eager to depart to press his candidacy for a European Committee on the Leisure Industry at a dinner, but Helen, who tells Laura he always makes waiters so furious they throw food at them, has psychosomatically-blocked muscles and various staff members are programmed to make wacky responses to certain signals by a hypnotist. Gordon asks him to cure Helen, but when he also goes into a trance, Laura convinces the therapist to temporarily remove his need to change the world.
S4.E5 ∙ Playing with Fire
Helen has (conveniently?) booked a week in Cornwall a week before Gordon's leave, so he's even more focused on the job, notably Energy Conservation Week, producing a mountain of (5-page) forms to be filled in at every use of electric equipment. Colin builds a complete methane digestion system for human bio-waste. Gavin's fiancée Jenny turns up after five years abroad, with amnesia. His gay colleague, housemate, and partner Tim goes through hell while Mr. Brittas champions the welcome committee. When Gavin says she was in psychiatric therapy for years after her parents' traumatic accident which turned her into a pyromaniac, Laura realizes the importance of Linda's discovery that Jenny's suitcases contain fuel and lighters. Then Colin reports she's in the basement, admiring his methane experiment; she may not be angered but Gordon is there too.
S4.E6 ∙ Shall We Dance?
Brittas sees the annual official dance as a rare occasion for his staff to mix with society, but is gravely disappointed when many seem unable or unwilling to get a suitable partner. Colin asks his milk-deliverywoman; Carole places an ad and gets an answer from her first teenage boyfriend, who is now wealthy but gets his hand stuck in the suggestion box and gets into worse trouble; Laura's Texan ex-partner Michael T. Farrell III turns up, disinherited and broke. Helen has rushed back home, but in what state? The weather isn't festive either.
S4.E7 ∙ The Chop
Mr. Brittas has the staff play an intricate board game which paints a grim vision on life, seemingly designed to show that hard work pays, but as Tim finds out, it only demonstrates that life is unfair. Councilor Jack Drugget, the new man in charge of sports, announces that the council simply is no longer prepared to foot the bill for the Leisure Centre's enormous deficit, and offers Brittas a generous pension with a bonus if he leaves the county, but he won't hear of it. Receptionist Carole asks Laura to help convince Gordon that her son Ben needs a larger cupboard. Helen brings in a dog that only knows nasty tricks, such as biting the tops off swimsuits, so telling him is out of the question. Drugget finds a note that 'H.' took all the petty cash and realizes Helen used it to buy the dog; grumbling that he takes away the first thing ever she really wanted, she goes missing. The councilor insists on pressing charges unless Gordon takes the blame--as pretext to sack him. The dog proves a lovely pet but stays out of his doghouse--Helen was hiding there. Gordon packs his things, but on the way out he finds Carole also sacked and therefore homeless, joining his guillotine nightmares.
S4.E8 ∙ High Noon
Since the last disaster actually got Gordon fired, he took a new job: petrol-station attendant. Laura isn't surprised to witness the endless lines of unhappy clients that his obsession for rules has created. An hour later, Helen tells Laura that Gordon has already been sacked. Meanwhile, at the Centre, only Colin misses Brittas' endless staff meetings and other nonsense. The new manager, Alan Digby, visits daily with unwanted, detailed 'suggestions,' but this time Gordon delivers a weather clock, personally installs it, tinkers with the timetable, and manages to exasperates a gas delivery truck driver enough to be declared persona non grata and cause a seriously dangerous incident in the center during Alan's short absence.
S5.E1 ∙ The Old, Old Story
Whitbury New Town Leisure Centre has just been rebuilt, and is hosting an episode of the national TV religious musical program "Songs of Praise". However, Gordon feels allowing use of the sanitary facilities by the mainly elderly public constitutes a safety risk as long as the staff pigeon holes are not draught-proof, so now for once people are flocking in but the staff are ordered to keep them out. Councillor Jack Drugett feels Brittas must go, but this time he plans to offer him an irresistible challenge: European Commissioner for Leisure. Matters become further complicated when an escaped emu is discovered to be loose in the building.
S5.E2 ∙ Blind Devotion
Colin is due for the sack and despite his blindness due to his garden exploding and his aunt dying, Mr Brittas is determined to fire him!
S5.E3 ∙ Brussels Calling
Mr Brittas is in Brussels, but that doesn't stop him running his Leisure centre.
S5.E4 ∙ The Lies Have It
Everyone is lying to Mr Brittas about a party that never happened in order to cover up Helen's adultery.
S5.E6 ∙ Pregnant!
Just when Gavin was to get his last test before his hoped-for promotion to Assistant Manager, the Centre's medical tests introduced to fight drugs cause hysteria: as there is a positive pregnancy test, suggesting that Linda is pregnant by 65-year-old headmaster Edward, Julie is pregnant by a Baronet, Carole is pregnant by Colin!--and there's an even more surprising pregnancy, and Brittas puts the suspect through a humiliating test. While Carole and Colin willingly consider marriage, Helen reveals to Laura that she swapped samples--it's possible that she's the one expecting.
S5.E7 ∙ UXB
People are looking forward to Julie's wedding with the baronet, she more to the informal party then the Westminster Abbey ceremony. Colin worries Gavin won't be able to fill Mr. Brittas's shoes, Gavin when he finds out Gordon wants Laura to succeed him. Carol barricades herself when Mr. Trap from Social Services shows a court order to confiscate the children she keeps in drawers and closets, but that works out surprisingly well... Helen hasn't told Gordon, but she isn't planning to follow him to Brussels, supposedly for the family dog and the children's school, but changes her mind when she finds out about an EU commissioner's pay and perks. Gordon insisted everyone has to learn think for himself, but that leaves Colin with an excessive responsibility: an unexploded World War II bomb he dug out...
S5.E9 ∙ In the Beginning...
This Christmas special has all the staff meeting up on New Year's Eve in the future, looking back at their first New Year's Eve together.
S6.E1 ∙ Back with a Bang
After his near-burial-alive, Gordon has been put together as a bionic man, but his therapy includes not being told he was dead. For Linda it's an opportunity to study life after death for theological college; for Helen a nightmare. Councilor Jack Druggett explains some nasty financial twists. Tim and Gavin have a row and turn to girlfriends, including Carole, who become allergic to anything recalling Trap or Austria having been dumped for a nun. Colin remembers the croquet case bomb--too late?
S6.E2 ∙ Body Language
Gordon's latest obsession is to teach the staff to read and use body-language, but he still can't understand words or actions. Tim forgets about his grudge against Gavin's managerial 'corruption' when his gay mate refuses to go home despite eye trouble caused by an experimental drug.
S6.E3 ∙ At the Double
Gordon programs a performance by the Ruthenian State Circus- actually three bumblers, lead by Vlad, who looks just like Brittas and flirts with all ladies, including his staff. The Chattanooga 'church' wants to make Gordon a polygamous elder or even a bishop. Exhausted from their nightly catering business, Gavin and Tim are sleepy on the job. Colin is insulted when Brittas refuses to include his dubious herbal potion in the center's recent merchandising spree. Helen's depression because of her apparent failing sex-appeal makes her an easy target for Mrs. Bidmead, who suggests plastic surgery to everyone.
S6.E4 ∙ A Walk on the Wildside
Tim eagerly joins a meditation course to fight stress, but ends up in deadly panic in the aftermath of Gordon's initially misguided right of passage policy and Colin's killer disease samples for preventive self-infection. While Gordon infuriates a legitimate Face in the Crowd prize-claimant, the course instructor turns out to have wed Helen years before Gordon.
S6.E5 ∙ We All Fall Down
Brittas organizes a week of fund-raising for Peace and Hunger featuring various sports marathons. Alas his emphasis on keeping to the rules makes many people's efforts invalid and pledged sums beyond sponsors' means. Tim discovers he's paid less than his colleagues and goes berserk, taking hostages and another desperate measure later on. The 'Olympic torch and eternal flame show' outdoes its own disaster potential, on TV.
S6.E6 ∙ Mr Brittas Falls in Love
After touring European leisure centers for the EU, Mr. Brittas is rather poetic, having fallen in love, like his wife, with Ingrid--a dolphin--and he believes in the species' therapeutic powers. Only Linda firmly opposes as 'animal abuse' Gordon's 'healing day' the next Tuesday. Tim raises the canteen to culinary heights--alas wasted on the clients, as only Carole and her closet kids enjoy the pricey menus. Rosemary Rawlinson, who has a speech/hearing impediment, is staying two weeks as a learning experience, warmly welcomed by ever-disgusting Colin. Julie messes up Gordon's order for live dolphin Wally and Tim's for shark fillet; meanwhile, Linda has mobilized a small army of animal rights activists.
S6.E7 ∙ Snap Happy
Having a staff picture taken by a professional photographer while English Heritage inspector Hampries checks the building sounds easy enough. But Mr. Britas manages to start a chain of catastrophes, helped by Helen who takes her therapist's advice to get over her anxiety by taking a parachute course with the neighboring RAF. A pool event turns dirty, in a big way, due to contaminated sandwiches - a problem left for Gavin to solve.
S7.E0 ∙ Surviving Christmas
Gordon takes the staff for a military-style team-building exercise into Wales. While dealing with the rigors of the wild, they are relentlessly pursued by would-be assassins. Gordon's well-intentioned motivational skills make things worse.
S7.E1 ∙ The Elephants' Child
Gordon's day starts with a step into elephant dung collected by Colin, who lost an engagement ring in it; Tim is terrified enough of the bungee-jump Brittas arranged to pretend he's sick so he won't need to tell 'tough' lover Gavin--a secret agoraphobic; Helen, helped by Julie, tries to stage a fur-coat theft as an insurance scam.
S7.E2 ∙ Reviewing the Situation
Gordon orders all the staff to do a critical report on a colleague's performance. Tim is to do a report for him, but is now found to have unofficially changed his name to Whistler (being fatherless) Goebbels, so Gordon considers Tim as non-existent. Linda meanwhile enjoys armed police protection from P.C. Greg Edwards as she is a witness against a mobster. Helen's latest obsession is bidding absurd prices for junk at auctions which she expects staff to accept 'gratefully'. The results surprise everybody.
S7.E3 ∙ http://etc
Mr. Brittas had the leisure center renovated and thoroughly computerized, painstakingly detailed and cumbersome to operate when it works and seems to put the staff out of work, even harder to beat when reality doesn't conform to its options. Councillor Druggett trusts Britas will hang himself being given a free hand to spend lottery and European subsidy funds. Tim and Gavin enlist the sabotaging help of a hacking schoolboy, so everything goes wrong even worse then usual...
S7.E4 ∙ Wake Up the Lion Within
Gordon has entered the leisure center for a European excellence price and expects everyone to prepare for the inspection using the 'inner lion' roar to tap one's unused potential which he learned at a loony Florida course. Alas in Carole's case this unleashes a power-hungry side of her personality, which tricks Gordon into resigning over an accident she stages to take over as a despotic manager who makes everyone's lives so miserable they actually all want Brittas back.
S7.E5 ∙ The Disappearing Act
Although he feels it undermines the team spirit, Gordon must award the council's employee of the month prize, a weekend in Paris, which spurs the staff into remarkable initiative. Alas it goes very wrong for Linda, whose gym equipment boost causes constructional havoc, and Colin, whose magic act for the birthday party packet -Gavin's idea, but others claim credit- involving various animals proves dangerous for himself, animals and party guests.
S7.E6 ∙ Gavin Featherly R. I. P.
Before dragging the staff to a stark sea resort for the annual 'team building' event, Gordon makes Gavin confess to a record company of infringing their copyright. After receiving a letter that the company is suing for £10,000, he takes Colin's experimental spud-powered motorboat to sea and goes missing for days. Gordon assumes he's dead and organizes a cheap 'funeral' without telling the family--all overseas--there is no body. French pirates picked Gavin up and put him up for sale as a slave. Tim blames himself for writing the letter as a prank but is furious to hear that Gavin never told his family about them in 10 years, then gets a call from Gavin but nobody believes the call is from him.
S7.E7 ∙ Exposed
Crusader TV reporter Roger Ferguson's budget is exhausted by a Nigerian trip, so he chooses the leisure center as next target for his 'documentary'. Gordon is confident his experience obtained from a PR course will result in favourable publicity, and even hires a gorgeous model as stand-in for Colin, but the real one's tropical rodents spread a bubonic fever. Gordon's over-confident 'damage control' makes it all much worse, and 'preventively' attracts the press.
S7.E8 ∙ Curse of the Tiger Women
After a weird curse from a gypsy about fatal food, the staff is afraid to eat Gordon's self-baked cake to celebrate the Leisure Centre's seventh anniversary, especially after Gordon's friend Harold eats some kedgeree and dies; Helen and Carole figure out that Carole's twins were fathered by Gordon (believing he was with his wife when everyone was in costume at Julie's party); Councillor Jack Druggett happily reports that the municipal council voted that Gordon must go on early retirement, but dies himself after enjoying a biscuit in Gordon's office.
