History Characters / TheBrittasEmpire

* OutOfFocus: His only relevance to the plot in Series 7 comes in "Reviewing the Situation", where a water pistol which is gifted to him by Helen gets mistaken for a real gun, and he's never directly mentioned again after only the second episode. Even his sisters get more importance, with a major part of "Curse of the Tiger Woman" focusing on their parents discovering the truth about their father.

* NewJobAsThePlotDemands: Series 5 reveals that secretary isn't her only job - "The Lies Have It" starts when she recognises Helen at the restaurant she was working at, whilst "Pregnant!" had her engage in a sexual liaison with a man she met whilst working at a party for Conservatives. "Brussels Calling" suggests that she even balances this with stripping at the club.

* OopNorth: "Pregnant!" reveals that she originates from Rotherham, making her one of the few Northerners aside from Colin. Her Northerner status actually leads to cultural difficulties with the Southerner Alex in the aforementioned episode, and she eventually throws him out because he wanted to give her elocution lessons.

* AnimalMotifs: Dogs, representing his similar adaptability and love for cramped spaces - "Not a Good Day..." sees Carole intending to bring along a dog carrier to the beach with him inside, whilst "Surviving Christmas" establishes him as loving dogs and being put in kennels like one.

* BrattyHalfPint: By Series 5, where he's only around 3, he begins to show some bratty behaviour, including calling his mother a "poo-head" for not buying him an air rifle. Series 6 amps up the behaviour, culminating in his brief time as a party guest in "Snap Happy" where he has a constant screaming fit and holds several girls hostage for party bags.

* OutOfFocus: His only relevance to the plot in Series 7 is when the water pistol that Helen gives him is mistaken for a real gun in "Reviewing the Situation", and one could be forgiven otherwise for thinking that Carole only has twin girls. Even his sisters get more importance, their paternity being a major part of "Curse of the Tiger Women". That said, considering his age, it's likely that his lack of relevance may come from him possibly now going to school or playgroup during the events of each episode.

* TheVoiceless: In Series 1-5, he never speaks at all - even in scenes where the opportunity for him to speak is given, it's usually drowned out, like via Carole's singing in "UXB". He's a bit more talkative in Series 6 and 7 however.

* ShrinkingViolet: "Curse of the Tiger Women" hints that they're beginning to develop this as a character trait - one of Carole's holiday photos has them frightened by the flash into running underneath the sofa and they cry at Helen's presence when she checks up on them in the cupboard.

* TheVoiceless: Even though they do eventually age to the point that they should be able to do some speaking, all we ever hear from them are crying noises.

!!Herr von Trap

* NoFullNameGiven: Never given a first name by the writers.

* OneSteveLimit: Tom shares his name with Carole's youngest son before he was retconned into becoming a girl named Jessica in Series 5.

* SatelliteFamilyMember: It's a meeting with Tom's teacher which sets up Helen's subplot in "Safety First" and it's Jonathan's time at Secondary School which helps set up Helen's subplots in "The Old, Old Story" and "Brussels Calling", but they themselves get little characterisation beyond being Brittas' stepchildren, to the point that their relationship with their stepfather remains ambiguous.

* SequelReset: Despite being on track to become European Commissioner for Sport in "The Last Day", "Back with a Bang" reveals he lost the job thanks to failing the medical (he was dead).

* HeroWorshipper: Views Brittas as God's gift to the Leisure Industry despite the latter both being very flawed and viewing him as his least favourite employee. He'll even see events such as the staff refusing to go another step during a survival course gone wrong as evidence of Brittas' talents in action.

* GenderEqualEnsemble: In Series 7, half of them were boys (Brittas, Tim, Gavin, and Colin) and half of them were girls (Linda, Julie, Helen, and Carole). Prior to this, it was a majority female cast, although the gender equalness is maintained leisure centre staff-wise. "Pregnant!" justifies this by having Brittas mention a staff gender quota.

* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: According to "At the Double", her full name is Penelope, but she is otherwise usually referred to as either "Penny" or "Mrs. Bidmead".

* ThePollyanna: Keeps a chirpy attitude despite his numerous aliments, even during his TraumaCongaLine in "Blind Devotion". The only time we really see him upset is either when he thinks he's being fired (as seen in "Mr. Brittas Changes Trains" and "[=http://etc]=]") or when Brittas dies in "The Last Day".

* AMFMCharacterization: When talking about the Music/NeilSedaka tape that he once gifted Helen in ''Gordon Brittas: Sharing the Dream'', Brittas mentions that Helen's favourite songs on it are "Litte Devil", "King of Clowns", "One Night Stand", "Solitaire", and "Our Last Song Together", referencing how she is a sexually promiscuous but depressed woman who wants nothing more than to get away from Brittas, not that he completely realises.

* AnimalMotifs: Dogs, representing his similar adaptability and love for cramped spaces - "Not a Good Day..." sees Carole intending to bring along a dog carrier with him inside, whilst "Surviving Christmas" establishes him as loving dogs and being put in kennels like one.

* CrossCastRole: While played by Phoebe Gilpin in Series 2.

* AnimalMotifs: Felines. "Temple of the Body" reveals that she wore a tiger costume to the fateful New Year's Party where she was inpregnated, and that she dreamed of being a tiger saving the rainforest whilst she was there. "Biggles Tells a Lie" shows her obtaining a pet cat, whilst "Wake Up the Lion Within" has her unlock her true potential through roaring like a lion.

* HiddenDepths: She has shocking talent in several areas, including piano playing and writing, but her tragic nature means that barely anyone is aware of these talents.

* TookALevelInJerkass: He becomes a lot more nasty to Gavin in Series 5 and 6 due to the increased conflicts which come with Gavin being in a Management role, to the point of pushing him into a pool because he suspects that Gavin has a crush on Penny. He's at his worst in "We All Fall Down" when he holds the staff hostage because he's found that he doesn't get paid as much as them.

* MissingMom: "Mums and Dads" reveals that his mother is dead, and apparently died whilst Brittas was playing the piano.

* CharacterDevelopment: He starts as a bit of a prick and seems to be only interested in Laura so that she can sire him a son and get him his inheritance. However, becoming broke humbles him and he grows to genuinely care for Laura. Fittingly, by the time of "In the Beginning...", it is implied that their reconciliation stuck.

* SmugSnake: Brittas views his charming exterior with the others as hiding a particularly slimy and lying personality. Laura's interactions with Michael reveal that Brittas was right, as Michael was only being pleasant with the others so that he could convince his wife Laura to have a baby to please his father. However, it is also made clear that he was unable to maintain a marriage with or even win back Laura (at first) and "Shall We Dance?" reveals that even his money was just given to him by his father.

* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Increases as the series goes on, to the point where in "The Christening", she loses her twin babies somewhere on her shopping route and only notices at the very end after Carole points out the pram is empty.

* JunkieParent: Starts out being the mother to three children (which rises to five by the end of Series 3 before going down to four for the rest of the series) and has a crippling addiction to prescription pills. Whilst we see very little of her relationship with her children, she does have an awful tendency to lose them or forget how many she has due to her addiction.

* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Her attempts to follow Brittas' direction can be quite bizarre, including trapping people so that they can fill in surveys. This is not getting into how she resolves the issue of having to raise three children whilst homeless. Roger Ferguson from "Exposed" even describes her as a woman who has just been released into the community.

* TookALevelInJerkass: He becomes a lot more nasty to Gavin in Series 5 and 6 due to the increased conflicts which come with Gavin being in a Management role, to the point of pushing him into a pool because he suspects that Gavin has a crush on Penny.. He's at his worst in "We All Fall Down" when he holds the staff hostage because he's found that he doesn't get paid as much as them.

* TokenReligiousTeammate: The only member of the staff to be particularly religious, having a desire to become Archdeacon beginning at the end of Series 5 and occasionally seen teaching children religiuous subjects like Noah's Ark.

* {{Jerkass}}: She's not a very pleasant person to be around thanks to her haughty nature - it's best shown in "A Walk on the Wildside" when she calls Brittas "a sad man" directly to his face and doodles on the board advertising the "face in the crowd" competition simply because she didn't want her services used for free.

* EnfantTerrible: He becomes this in Series 6, to the point that it's a minor RunningGag in the latter half that he is unable to participate in the parties or special days of an episode because he's done something violent off-screen, up to and including cutting off the hand of a children's entertainer with a Flymo.

-->'''Mr. Brittas''': Carole, I'd hardly call dangling his Montessori teacher out of a second floor window calming down.

* SuddenlySpeaking: Despite being barely on-screen in Series 6 and 7, he actually becomes slightly more talkative, getting a line ("Oh no! I won't get it back!") in "At the Double" and being heard to call out "Mumma!" at Carole in "The Elephant's Child".

* DistaffCounterpart: Has one in the form of Philippa Belmot (an OneShotCharacter from "The Christening"), being a person so annoying that no one can stand her.

* FirstNameBasis: Whilst he is usually on LastNameBasis with his staff, he sometimes insists on being called his first name, such as when he's trying to pass Laura off as his wife in "Mr. Brittas Changes Trains" and when he's training Gavin in "The Boss". He's also referred to by his first name as such by his wife in general.

* HappilyMarried: What he believes his marriage to Helen to be, with him once marking their marriage down as perfect in "Bye Bye Baby", although later episodes like "The Chop" have him fully aware of her unstable nature. From Helen's side however, it's more of an AwfulWeddedLife.

* ChuckCunninghamSyndrome: Disappeared after Series 1, the 1994 Christmas special "In the Beginning..." which took place before Series 1 has no mention of her and acts like Julie was part of the staff from the start of the series.

* {{Retcon}}: While it seems Series 5's "In the Beginning..." officially retconned her out of existence (Julie is shown to be Brittas' secretary when the centre opens), she was actually retconned as early back as Series 2's "Temple of the Body", where it was revealed Carole had been impregnated at one of Julie's parties... even though Carole was first confirmed to be pregnant in Series 1's "Assassin".

** In "Curse of the Tiger Women", she actually tells Councillor Drugget that his attempts to fire Brittas are outright too extreme.

* {{Jerkass}}: Out of the staff Julie is the one most likely to react with apathy to missing children, dead pensioners, and so on and so forth.

* TheLadette: Probably the most masculine of the female members of staff, having a thing for booze, a LazyBum, a lack of respect for Brittas, and being willing to set cars on fire if neccessary.

* OopNorth: "Pregnant!" reveals that she originates from Rotherham, making up one of the few Northerners aside from Colin. Her Northerner status actually leads to cultural difficulties with the Southerner Alex in the aforementioned episode, and she eventually throws him out because he wanted to give her elocution lessons.

* BosssUnfavoriteEmployee: Brittas hated her just as much as everyone else and would sometimes mock her behind her back. Presumably, it's a combination of both her owning a privatised business in the centre and her nasty attitude towards Brittas.

** Whilst Laura has her snarky moments in dealing with Brittas and she does seem to think of him as a bit of an idiot, she was also shown to hold great affection and even romantic feelings towards him, and usually tried to help him. Contrast with Penny, who has a much frostier relationship with Brittas to the point that she is willing to insult his appearance.

* LoveHurts: None of her romantic relationships go right for her - Derrick ditches her halfway into her pregnancy without paying the mortgage on their home, she fails to raise enough money to move to Australia to be with an old boyfriend, Ronald ends up in an UncertainDoom in the vents of the centre, Gerald downright dies thanks to Tim, and Her von Trap ditches her in favour of a nun.

* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy: Brittas lets Laura move to America with Michael at the end of Series 5, despite harbouring secret feelings for her.

** In later series, he'd come up with silly sounding acronyms for things in the centre ('''T'''ime '''I'''nstigated '''T'''otally '''I'''ntegrated '''S'''ecurity... or T.I.T.I.S).

* TookALevelInJerkass: He has much less PetTheDog moments in Series 6 and 7 and is much more likely to react to the issues with his leisure centre with indifference. Evidently, Laura's departure had a massive effect on him.

* WideEyedIdealist: His actions are usually caused by his Dream, which involves lofty goals such as world government, world peace, and a religious revival.

** There are also several hints at a possible relationship between him and Carole - in "Pregnant!", even after being told that they don't have to marry after all, Carole and Colin's final conversation in the episode features a scene framed as an AlmostKiss and Carole is distraught over the whole matter. Colin is also the one most willing to praise Carole in Series 6 and even wonders if he had proposed marriage to her before, although nothing comes of these teases.

* AmbiguouslyBi: He's definitely in a relationship with Tim, but was engaged to Jenny beforehand (albeit possibly as TheBeard) and Tim sees women such as Penny as being a potential romantic risk for Gavin.

* ButtMonkey: Especially in "The Boss", where Brittas' attempts to show him his duties if he joins the management lead him to a nervous breakdown.

* ClosetGay: "Gavin Featherly R.I.P." reveals that he never wrote about Tim or his relationship with him in his letters to his parents, with the implication that it's because he doesn't want them to find out that he's gay - his father is a retired army colonel after all, who essentially cut his brother out of the family simply because he wasn't interested in the lifestyle.

* AccidentalMisnaming: Has a tendency to mangle Brittas' name in such variations like "MissBriss" and "Britts".

* BewareTheNiceOnes: She's usually one of the nicer members of staff, but if she will attack you viciously if you put her son in danger (as Brittas and the pirate entertainer in "Snap Happy" learn) or act callously towards the death of her boyfriend (as Gavin learns in "The Boss").

* CharacterisationMarchesOn: When it initially came to her habit of keeping children in drawers, Carole in Series 1 and 2 seemed to be aware that this wasn't the best idea for them, appearing embarrassed at having to do so in "Bye Bye Baby" and admitting to Julie in one of her more confident phases that Ben would be better out of the drawer than in them. By Series 4 and 5, this awareness had vanished, and she was depicted as finding it a perfectly acceptable method of raising children, much to her detriment in "The Chop" and "UXB". The fact that her children don't seem affected by this beyond a dislike for open spaces (at least until they TookALevelInJerkass in Series 6) may have something to do with this. Additionally, she was more frequently ProneToTears and a ShrinkingViolet in Series 1 compared to later on.

* LoveHurts: None of her romantic relationships go right for her - Derrick ditches her halfway into her pregnancy without paying the mortgage on their home, she fails to raise enough money to move to Australia to be with an old boyfriend, Ronald ends up in an UncertainDoom in the vents of the centre, Gerald downright dies thanks to Tim, and Herr von Trap ditches her in favour of a nun.

* MeaningfulRename: Part of the reason he took on the name of Whistler (aside from the embarrassment of having the surname of Göebbels) was in reference to his father, who had been a guide whose whistle was used to signal that the coast was clear at the East Germany border.

* WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes: An unusual case, "A Walk on the Wildside" reveals that he is afraid of men in anoraks because they remind him of death.

* CharacterisationMarchesOn: In "Back with a Bang", she's shown to be worried for Carole's well-being, is well-liked by the rest of the staff, and actually tried to get Brittas to help Carole, traits which largely vanish after said episode.

** Whilst Laura was pretty close management-wise to Brittas, being his Deputy Manager Dry, Penny simply runs the Solarium and Sauna, which being a privatised business meant that she interacted a lot less with Brittas.

* FlatCharacter: Outside of her dislike for Brittas and her apparently harbouring a crush on Gavin, we get to learn very little about her, not helped by the fact that most of her screentime in the latter half of Series 6 involves her assisting in Helen's issues. Tellingly, "Snap Happy", which has Helen away from the centre for the majority of the episode, barely features her.

* AscendedExtra: One of the few non-main cast staff member to remain after most of them disappeared around Series 3 or 4.

* SmugSnake: Brittas views his charming exterior with the others as hiding a particularly slimy and lying personality. Laura's interactions with Michael reveal that Brittas was right, as despite his ways, he was only being pleasant with the others so that he could convince his wife Laura to have a baby to please his father. However, it is also made clear that he was unable to maintain a marriage with or win back Laura (at first) and "Shall We Dance?" reveals that even his money was just given to him by his father.

* FromTheMouthsOfBabes: Tom asks if a very wide and thin coffin would need to be constructed for his stepfather when he learns of his death in "Back from the Dead". Even Helen comments upon how strange it is coming from a young child.

* AxCrazy: As the show goes on, she gradually becomes both more insane and more violent, with her usual response to being criticised by someone being to attack them in a violent rage, usually with the intent to kill. "Exposed" is the most notable example with Helen going after a reporter because he lied about his identity to her with an ''axe''.