History Series / TheBrittasEmpire

A large supporting cast consists of Gordon's deputy managers [[OnlySaneEmployee Laura Lancing]] (Creator/JuliaStJohn) and [[TheDitz Colin]] [[ThePigPen Weatherby]] (Creator/MikeBurns), secretary Angie (Creator/AndreeBernard) - who was quickly replaced by [[SassySecretary Julie Porter]] (Creator/JudyFlynn), receptionist [[TheChewToy Carole Parkinson]] (Creator/HarrietThorpe) and pool attendants [[NiceGuy Gavin Featherly]] (Creator/TimMarriott), [[DeadpanSnarker Tim Whistler]] (Russell Porter) and [[ActionGirl Linda Perkin]] (Jill Greenacre). Other non-staff characters include Gordon's philandering, unstable, pill-popping wife [[BrokenBird Helen]], sauna/solarium manageress [[TheFriendNobodyLikes Penny Bidmead]] (Anouschka Menzies) [[note]] Only in Series 6 [[/note]] and [[DesignatedVillain Councillor Jack Drugget]] (Creator/StephenChurchett). Many of the characters are almost as dysfunctional as Brittas himself.

** In "[[Recap/TheBrittasEmpireS2E6SafetyFirst Safety First]]", a fire starts in the leisure centre, and the customers are misdirected by Linda (who is unaware of the fire, but currently doing safety drills for the centre) into thinking that they can't go down past the third floor. The panicking crowd end up all on the same ladder in a disused room to get down, in spite of the fact that the ladder is designed to handle only 8 people and the crowd is of a higher number than that. Special mention goes to Councillor Drapping, who tells everyone to get off as the ladder can't handle the weight... whilst on the ladder. Naturally, everyone ends up injured when the ladder breaks.

After the end of the show, a short miniseries (''Series/GetFitWithBrittas'') was aired in 1997, which aimed to educate the public on physical health and exercise.

** The show's writers seem rather keen on electrocutions in particular. During Gordon's tenure at the leisure centre, both a pool full of reborn Pentecostals, and a massive hand-holding circle of children are all electrocuted to near death. Gordon himself also ends up being pumped full of electricity, when Gavin's mentally disturbed fiance Jessica ties him up to Colin's waste management system.

** The Rt. Hon. Sebastian Coe MP shoots a small documentary at Whitbury New Town, and is roped into opening a leisure centre toilet named after himself by Gordon Brittas, with the promise of "it'll only take two minutes." Of course, he ends up chained to a stair-rail while the leisure centre is pillaged and sacked by an army of Romans. In the 1994 Christmas special, the Rt. Hon. Gavin Featherly MP comments on what a fantastic job Prime Minister Sebastian Coe is doing.

* CatchPhrase:

* ChalkOutline: After Brittas is crushed to death in “The Last Day”, Ben (Carole’s son) is seen putting flowers on a chalk outline of his body in the centre.
* ChainsawGood: At one point in the episode “The Trial”, Brittas gets his hand stuck to a chainsaw. He winds up accidentally causing grievous bodily harm to several elderly women (by slipping and sawing through their walkers) and (also accidentally) decapitates a gangster.

* CircusEpisode: The episode “At The Double” is about the Ruthenian State Circus coming to Whitbury as part of an EU initiative. HilarityEnsues when one of the clowns performing as part of the act, Vlad, is revealed to be an IdenticalStranger to Brittas.

--->'''Tim''': Are you alright, Colin?
--->'''Colin''': I know he doesn't mean to Tim, but sometimes Mr. Brittas can be really hurtful.

* DistantFinale: The first Christmas special was intended to be a {{Downplayed}} example. It does shows what the cast is doing 25 years from the premiere year of the episode (1994) but the majority of the episode is a WholeEpisodeFlashback to 1989. Of course, the BBC renewed it for two more seasons after that.

* SocialServicesDoesNoExist: Shockingly, despite the fact that Carole's children are being raised in actual drawers and cupboards in the unstable environment that is the leisure centre, it takes five series for someone from social services to actually come in and look into the issue. Whilst the person does take the issue seriously and is eventually convinced to take Carole on as a music teacher after listening to the children singing, Series 6 has her back at the centre after he broke up with her, said man seemingly not caring that the children have just gone back into that unstable life, and no-one looks into the issue again in spite of the fact that Ben starts exhibiting violent behaviour apparently thanks to said upbringing.

* SocialServicesDoesNoExist: Shockingly, despite the fact that Carole's children are being raised in actual drawers and cupboards in the unstable environment that is the leisure centre, it takes five series for someone from social services to actually come in and look into the issue. Whilst the person does take the issue seriously and is eventually convinced to take Carole on as a music teacher after listening to the children singing, Series 6 has her back at the centre after he broke up with her, said man seemingly not caring that the children have just gone back into that stable life, and no-one looks into the issue again in spite of the fact that Ben starts exhibiting violent behaviour apparently thanks to said upbringing.

* StepServant: [[StrugglingSingleMother Carole's]] stepmother forced her to give up her dreams of being a pianist, instead forcing her to go beauty school and to do domestic chores (installing a StayInTheKitchen mindset into her, claiming that was all she was good for). Poor [[TheChewToy Carole]] hasn't managed to escape this fate even in adulthood, despite no longer living with her stepmother (and being homeless) as in "[[Recap/TheBrittasEmpireSe5MumsAndDads Mums and Dads]]" she forces her to clean her house, whilst taking her two daughters to a grand ball.

** Carole, who has a tendency to get into YankTheDogsChain situations and whose home situation is so bad that she literally has to raise her children in the leisure centre. Of course, it doesn't help that in earlier series, Brittas had a tendency to call her unattractive.

** A classic example. The beautiful Angie appears as Gordon's secretary in all episodes of series 1. From series 2 onwards, she is randomly replaced by a new secretary, Julie, with no grand entrance for Julie and absolutely no explanation for Angie's absence. The producers even went as far as retconning Angie out of the continuity in the 1994 Christmas Special, which depicts Julie as having worked at the leisure centre only days after it first opened in series 1.

** Simon, an alleged "Uncle" of Helen's who she had an affair with, was mentioned in the first series (before they broke up around the second series) but never showed up.

** Downplayed, as Carole is a genuinely loving mother and her situation is normally played sympathetically, but a fair amount of jokes are mined from the fact that she's raising her children in the very enclosed spaces that are the cupboards and drawers behind reception. This is not getting into how she almost roasted Ben alive in his drawer, or the fact that her idea of keeping him safe whilst she's away on a survival course in Wales is putting him in kennels over the Christmas period.

* JustAStupidAccent: In one episode, Gordon claims to know French when answering a phone call. He proceeds to simply put on a silly French accent.

* MamaBear: When Carol thinks her baby is in danger, she's perfectly capable of commandeering a digger and using it to smash up Brittas' car. With him inside it.

* {{Bowdlerize}}: The UKTV airings of the show censors out some of the worst words used in the show, with the use of "bastard" in both "Bye Bye Baby" and "Underwater Wedding" being cut out.

* AccidentalMurder: A fair amount of the deaths which occur are examples of this trope. For example, the episode “The Trial” has Brittas, glued to a chainsaw and trying to help a gangster who is unconscious on the other side of the door, accidentally cut his head off with a chainsaw instead.

** PlayedWith as it isn't actually his birthday yet, but Carole throws a birthday party for Ben in "Body Language". HilarityEnsues when two of the party guests escape and are mistaken for aliens by Colin.

** Jonathan (Helen's son)'s English teacher accidentally receives one of these in "Brussels Calling", reading "I know where you live and I am going to get you". Since Helen had only recently attempted to murder him, he naturally believes that she's making another attempt at it.

* DreadfulMusician: Gordon is revealed to be one of these in the episode "Mums and Dads". Apparently, his wife had to burn their piano just to stop him from playing it. We later on in the episode get to hear him play (a horrible rendition of "Knock Three Times"), which is shown to cause mass cringing amongst those present.

* FakingAndEntering: In "The Elephant's Child", Helen wanted to run the solarium and sauna. Unfortunately, she does not have the money to do so. To resolve this issue, she engineers a break-in of the centre with Julie so that she can take her fur-coat so that she can claim it was stolen, and get insurance for it. Unfortunately for her, the plan is complicated by Julie giving birth in the centre.

* FieryRedhead: By far the most literal trope in this list. Gavin's secret, long-lost fiance Jessica is not only a redhead, but also a mentally disturbed pyromaniac who sets fire to things and plays with fireworks as a form of anger management.

* GenderEqualEnsemble: The show becomes this in its last series, having a main cast consisting of 4 females (Carole, Julie, Linda and Helen) and 4 males (the titular Gordon Brittas, Tim, Gavin, and Colin). Beforehand though, the show was a {{Downplayed}} example of this, having a slightly dominant female staff of 5 girls and 4 boys.

* TheGhost: A couple of examples of these:
** Brittas' three stepchildren. They're mentioned a fair amount but the most we get is a distant shot of two of them (which doesn't establish which is which) in the first episode. One of them never even gets named.

* GrievousHarmWithABody: Brittas and Linda are implied (they’re covered in blood and feathers and Brittas mentions he was attacked to have been attacked by a man using the body of a dead hawk after Brittas accidentally helps set up its death in “An Inspector Calls”.

* HarmlessElectrocution: Happens twice:

** Downplayed, as Carole is a genuinely loving mother and her situation is normally played sympathetically, but a fair amount of jokes are mined from the fact that she's raising her children in the very enclosed spaces that are the cupboards and drawers behind reception.
** Then there's what Helen is like with her children - one episode has her managing to leave her twins behind on the bus, and the fact that she can't even remember how many children she has is twice PlayedForLaughs. Her idea of reassurance to a man whose daughter had gone missing is even that when one of her own children goes missing, at least she knows that she has others at home.

* HoldingInLaughter: [[Recap/TheBrittasEmpireS4E3BigglesTellsALie Biggles Tells a Lie]]", Colin tells Laura that he has an illegitimate daughter, and that he has been pretending to be a Manager [[WellDoneDadGuy so that she could be proud of him]]. When he admits that he didn't want to tell the rest of the staff as he feared that they might have laughed, Laura reassures him that they won't, although it doesn't stop her from struggling to keep a straight face and not laughing anyway.

* HowWeGotHere: The first episode of series 3 employs this trope, showing Gordon Brittas in court being tried for murder. The episode then goes through a series of flashbacks to show just how seven gangsters wound up dead in his leisure centre.

* HypnoFool: The episode ‘Mr. Brittas changes trains’ opens on the outcome of a stage hypnotist, leading to the staff exhibiting strange behaviour for 24 hours (Patrick gets a Potty Emergency when he hears a bell, Colin says “I love you” when someone mentions ‘need’, etc). Later, Brittas sends in the hypnotist to try to cure Helen’s stress-related paralysis. It winds up hypnotising him instead into a better person (temporarily).

* IdenticalStranger: One episode has a dodgy East European acrobat appear in the centre who looks just like Gordon Brittas. HilarityEnsues when he tries to seduce all the women.

* LysistrataGambit: {{Subverted}}. Mr Brittas's wife Helen tries withholding sex as a sign of displeasure at a proposed move to Belgium in "Blind Devotion". A few weeks later she admits to a friend "it's been Hell!" for her while he hasn't even noticed.

* ManOnFire: {{Downplayed}}. In the episode, “Playing With Fire”, Gordon is trying to locate Colin. As he does this, he finds several small fires that were set up by Gavin’s long lost fiancee Jenny. As he is trying to put them out, the fire spreads onto his leg, causing him to go around partially on fire yelping “Help me! Help me!”.
* MaternityCrisis: Helen Brittas's disastrous birth of her twins in the middle of Whitbury High Street, delivered by passing transvestite medical students, after Gordon manages to get their car boxed in.

* MirrorCharacter: Southern Areas Inspector Brian Kitson is this to Gordon Brittas. They both have had experience running a leisure centre, both have ''a dream'', believe that attendance figures are not important in the long run and are more interested in tidy noticeboards and clean centres. This actually saves Brittas from getting fired as any other inspector would likely have closed the place down.

* MySecretPregnancy: Carole keeps her pregnancy secret from Brittas during Series 2 as she fears that she would lose her job (and [[NonResidentialResidence her home]]). Brittas winds up not finding out until she is actively giving birth. Luckily for Carole, although Brittas considers firing her, he doesn't in the end.

** The episode "New Generations" features Carole and a pregnant cow ingesting herbs (meant to induce pregnancy in overdue mothers) and going into labour as a result. HilarityEnsues when a mix-up leads to Carole being tended to by the vet and the cow by a doctor. For bonus points, the episode ends with the reveal that Helen's pregnant with twins as well.

** Later on, "The Elephant's Child" has Julie give birth to a child in the leisure centre during a break-in orchestrated by Helen [[ItMakesSenseInContext to steal her own fur-coat]]. She winds up naming the child after Gordon and Colin (who were present at the birth).

* OffWithHisHead: Although the camera cuts away before we see the chainsaw hit flesh, Gordon Brittas is stated to have accidentally cut off the head by accident of a South American gangster in the episode "The Trial".

* RealAfterAll: Colin spends the duration of the episode “Body Language” believing that aliens not only exist but are about to invade the centre due to a series of misunderstandings. At the end of the episode, however, it is revealed that a plant brought in by Helen war actually an alien. It concludes that there is NoIntelligentLifeHere before warping out in front of a shocked Colin.

* ScaleModelDestruction: Colin presents Brittas with a model of the leisure centre in “Back With A Bang", only for him to accidentally sit on it and destroy it later on.

* SexAtWork: After [[FindingABraInYourCar discovering a pair of pants down the back of one of his couches]] in his main office, Brittas spends the majority of the episode trying to gather evidence that a "love nest" existed in the leisure centre. Whilst doing so, he discovers that Carole has started living in the centre, having recently been kicked out of her flat. Whilst trying to comfort her, a group of reporters (there for a different reason) barges in and, believing it to be a love nest, captures a photo and makes it headline news in the newspapers. Ultimately {{Subverted}} when the pants are revealed to have eventually come from a one night stand that his unemployed wife Helen had with someone not from the centre.

* TheShowMustGoOn: In the episode "Mums and Dads", the pianist that had been meant to play has been knocked unconscious by a piano and they need to find another one in the next half hour to start the concert planned that night. Unfortunately, a poor choice of words by Laura leads [[DreadfulMusician Brittas]] to play the piano instead. Cue CringeComedy.
* SilentTreatment: In “That Creeping Feeling”, the majority of the staff refuse to speak to Brittas after he obtains their personal fitness targets through ... privacy-violating ways. They eventually start talking to him again after Brittas sucks the poison out of a spider inflicted wound in an ... awkward area of Colin.

* SlippingIntoStink: "The Elephant's Child" ends with Helen and Gordon Brittas falling into Elephant excrement. Even worse, Gordon manages to swallow a ring that had been swallowed by the elephant sometime before.

* SuckOutThePoison: Colin gets bitten by a deadly tropical spider in 'That Creeping Feeling' and , due to the antidote being a considerable distance away, the only way to keep him alive long enough is to do this. Unfortunately, Colin had the misfortune of being bit near the crotch area. Brittas volunteers to do so and win back the respect of the staff, who had been refusing to speak to him at the time (He had been creating fitness targets for them by spying on them and violating their privacy).

* TakeThat: UsefulNotes/TheEuropeanUnion, then a new political institution, is not treated very kindly by the show, especially in Series 4 and 5. In "Mr. Brittas Changes Trains", they're depicted as wasting European Funds away for lavish dinners for their committees. In "The Old, Old Story", Councillor Drugget outright calls it "a pointless bureaucracy spending vast amounts of money", which Laura doesn't actually argue with. Laura's idea of reassurance to Helen the episode after is even that Brittas would be perfect in his new job there as European Commissioner for Sport, which gives off the impression that the EU is a perfect place for {{Obstructive Bureaucrat}}s like Brittas.

* ThereAreNoTherapists: Averted in this case - A plot point in Series 1 and 2 is Helen trying to get marriage counselling for her and Brittas, although it ends poorly when Brittas is suspected of cheating on her. Additionally, by Series 7, it's revealed that most of the staff are in therapy thanks to Brittas and a plotline during the series has Helen becoming one herself.

* TieInNovel: ''Gordon Brittas: Sharing the Dream'', released in 1994, is a book which gives us Brittas' perspective of the events of the first four series, as well as his philosophy of life and how to make it in the world.

* TrainingFromHell: After Gavin is promoted to Acting Deputy Manager, Gordon puts him through extreme "disaster training". Poor Gavin is led to believe a tanker full of ethanol chloride has crashed into a milk float outside the centre and caused a spillage of hydrochloric acid, a bus full of school children are trapped in the acid spill, a serious fire has broken out in the squash courts and a woman has become trapped inside a sunbed with only minutes left to live...''on his first day.'' Gavin doesn't handle it very well and has a mini-breakdown at the end of the episode.

** There are some indicators that their time living in the leisure centre has made Ben (and to a lesser extent his twin young sisters Emily and Jessia) [[BrattyHalfPint Bratty Half-Pints]] who show TroublingUnchildlikeBehaviour and who are interested in inflicting violence or owning weapons. This trait can be seen in the fact that one of the toys they are shown to own in "The Last Day" is a toy rabbit hooked up to a miniature electric chair.

** In "Blind Devotion", Colin becomes temporarily blinded, and loses his aunt, pet canary, and life savings in quick succession. This is also revealed to occur ''on his birthday'' no less.
** In "Curse Of The Tiger Woman", Gordon Brittas loses his only friend to cursed cooking, finds out he is the father to Carole's twins, and is threatened with early retirement. Capping things off, the centre is about to explode, he is attacked by a goose and then finds out that the past seven series were AllJustADream.