The Brittas Empire

- Season 4

(1994)

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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.

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...

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.

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. ...

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 ...