History Series / TheBrittasEmpire

* BreakTheMotivationalSpeaker: One comes to give the staff a lecture on not turning to drugs to cope with stress. His encounter with Gordon Brittas has him popping pills in front of an audience and extolling the virtues of "the little green ones," before smashing up the projector and physically assaulting Gordon in a blind rage.

A large supporting cast consists of Gordon's deputy managers [[OnlySaneEmployee Laura Lancing]] (Creator/JuliaStJohn) and [[TheDitz Colin]] [[ThePigPen Weatherby]] (Mike Burns), secretary Angie (Andrée Bernard) - who was quickly replaced by [[SassySecretary Julie Porter]] (Creator/JudyFlynn), receptionist [[TheChewToy Carole Parkinson]] (Creator/HarrietThorpe) and pool attendants [[NiceGuy Gavin Featherly]] (Tim Marriott), [[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]] (Stephen Churchett). Many of the characters are almost as dysfunctional as Brittas himself.

A large supporting cast consists of Gordon's deputy managers [[OnlySaneEmployee Laura Lancing]] (Creator/JuliaStJohn) and [[TheDitz Colin]] [[ThePigPen Weatherby]] (Mike Burns), secretary Angie (Andrée Bernard) - who was quickly replaced by [[SassySecretary Julie Porter]] (Judy Flynn), receptionist [[TheChewToy Carole Parkinson]] (Creator/HarrietThorpe) and pool attendants [[NiceGuy Gavin Featherly]] (Tim Marriott), [[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]] (Stephen Churchett). Many of the characters are almost as dysfunctional as Brittas himself.

A large supporting cast consists of Gordon's deputy managers [[OnlySaneEmployee Laura Lancing]] (Julia St. John) and [[TheDitz Colin]] [[ThePigPen Weatherby]] (Mike Burns), secretary Angie (Andrée Bernard) - who was quickly replaced by [[SassySecretary Julie Porter]] (Judy Flynn), receptionist [[TheChewToy Carole Parkinson]] (Creator/HarrietThorpe) and pool attendants [[NiceGuy Gavin Featherly]] (Tim Marriott), [[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]] (Stephen Churchett). Many of the characters are almost as dysfunctional as Brittas himself.

A large supporting cast consists of Gordon's deputy managers [[OnlySaneEmployee Laura Lancing]] (Julia St. John) and [[TheDitz Colin]] [[ThePigPen Weatherby]] (Mike Burns), secretary Angie (Andrée Bernard) - who was quickly replaced by [[SassySecretary Julie Porter]] (Judy Flynn), receptionist [[TheChewToy Carole Parkinson]] (Harriet Thorpe) and pool attendants [[NiceGuy Gavin Featherly]] (Tim Marriott), [[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]] (Stephen Churchett). Many of the characters are almost as dysfunctional as Brittas himself.

** Gordon's "I have a dream..." manta, as well as his Mr. Burns-styled "Eeeeeeeeeeexcellent!". Also, "Nyaaah!" and "Wooooo"

* DreamWithinADream: At one point in the series finale, Gordon is knocked unconscious by an angry goose. He initially wakes up in Noah's Ark, with several of the female cast of the show stating that they've got to repopulate the world. After this, he then wakes up on his way to the interview for the centre, revealing that the entirety of the series was AllJustADream. Even weirder, he has mentioned having literal dreams earlier on in the series, leading to a possible dream within a dream within a dream scenario.

** Brittas has a more nasally and posher-sounding voice and is more of a {{Jerkass}} than in later series, with it not being until Series 2 that his more sympathetic side shows up.
** Helen hung out with next-door neighbour Pam, who undergoes ChuckCunninghamSyndrome afterwards and is replaced by a new friendship with Laura.
** Carole wasn't quite living in the centre just yet - that change wouldn't occur until Series 2's "Temple of the Body". Instead, she was on the verge of losing her flat, having to bring in Ben because there was no-one available to watch over him. For that matter, when she does fall pregnant at the end of Series 1, it's implied that it was her landlord who impregnated her, with it not being until Series 2 that it was established that it was Brittas' fault.

A BritCom starring Creator/ChrisBarrie running seven series between 1991 and 1997. It was created by Andrew Norriss and Richard Fegen (previously known for producing ''Series/ChanceInAMillion''), and written by them for the first five series, after which they departed and a new team of writers took over. [[note]]The commonly accepted sequence of events is that Series 5 was planned to be the last, but owing to its popularity the BBC recommissioned it anyway, and when the creators turned them down the BBC hired the new writers.[[/note]] ''The Brittas Empire'' is a slightly surrealist look at proud English leisure centre manager [[ObstructiveBureaucrat Gordon Brittas]] (Barrie), and his utter failure to manage the fictional Whitbury New Town Leisure Centre. Brittas is an obsessive bureaucrat and a stickler for rules and procedures, no matter what the situation, resulting in catastrophes on a regular basis. According to his wife Helen (Pippa Haywood), he thinks he's the oil that keeps everything running, but he is in fact the grit in the engine. He is a talentless, tactless and hopeless case of the PointyHairedBoss.

* GroinAttack: A frequent source of physical pain for male characters, especially early on in the series. Colin gets it the worst, getting a button hole right through it off-screen in "The Boss", punching himself in the dick to get rid of a fly in "UXB", and getting a jet of scalding tea to his cock in "The Last Day". Oddly enough, Brittas himself doesn't get one until the short-lived spin-off ''Get Fit With Brittas", when Lesley Joseph decks him there to shut him up.

-->'''Helen''': It's just to tell him it's fishcakes for supper and I'm pregnant.
-->'''Laura''': Helen! That's fantastic!
-->'''Helen''': Well after today's events, I thought the news had rather lost its novelty value.

--->"I've been to Whitbury Leisure Centre & swum in the poo"
--->"'S'hitbury Leisure Centre"
--->"I Fartied with Mr. Jolly"
--->"I Piddled for a Medal"

* ChristmasCake: Laura, who spends most of the series looking good in a short, pleated skirt.

* TemporaryBlindness: In the episode "Blind Devotion", Colin is rendered temporarily blinded, courtesy of his garden blowing up. This proves to be only the beginning of a TraumaCongaLine for him that episode.

* SpidersAreScary: "That Creeping Feeling" had someone try to assassinate Brittas by sending over a mating pair of extremely (as in, the poison kills in minutes) venomous spiders to the centre. The female ate the male in transit and eventually bit Colin in an unmentionable area, leading to Brittas having to SuckOutThePoison in order to save his life

* ThirteenIsUnlucky: The flashbacks in "The Trial", which involved the deaths of seven gangsters and the grievous bodily harm inflicted on several elderly people, is noted to have taken place on Friday the Thirteenth.

* ABirthdayNotABreak: An epic TraumaCongaLine (including temporary blindness, death of an aunt, death of a pet, loss of life savings) for Colin is revealed halfway through to have taken place on his birthday.

* ButtMonkey: Colin, the disgusting northern leper, who is fired and near-fired by Brittas on several occasions, and is generally liked but not at all respected by the rest of the team.

** Another very minor example is the Brittas's next-door neighbour Pam, who befriends Helen in series 1 before disappearing, presumably because her role was more easily filled by Laura (and later, Penny).
* CircusEpisode: The episode “At The Double” is about the Ruthenian State Circus coming to Whitburn 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.
* [[ClingyJealousGirl Clingy Jealous Guy]]: Tim, to the more level-headed Gavin.

* CrashingDreams: The final episode, which concludes with Gordon Brittas waking up on an ark that Colin the janitor has been secretly building in the car park of the leisure center. After a moment, he's jolted out of the dream by Colin repeatedly calling "Tickets, please" and realizes that he's been asleep on a train... [[spoiler: also that Colin is in fact the conductor, he's on his way to the interview for the job he's had throughout the series, and the entire fifty-odd episodes of the program have been a dream]].

* FindingABraInYourCar: The plot of "Temple Of The Body" kicks off when Gordon finds a pair of underwear down the back of one of the couches in his main office, which is later revealed to be the result of a one night stand that his wife had. Unlike most examples of this trope, Gordon never does find out that it's his wife's; he initially assumes it comes from one of his staff and he drops it once he discovers Carole's bedroom in the leisure centre.
* ForcefulKiss: Gordon Brittas daydreams about deputy manager Laura and himself; the fantasy sequence starts with him being entirely oblivious to her desperately trying to tell him how much she loves him. Finally she gets fed up with this and starts kissing him passionately. Just then, Brittas is jolted out of his daydream when the door opens and the ''real'' Laura comes in

* GroinAttack: A frequent source of physical pain for male characters, especially early on in the series. Colin gets it the worst, getting a button hole right through it off-screen in "The Boss", punching himself in the dick to get rid of a fly in "UXB", and getting a jet of scalding tea to his cock in "The Last Day". Oddly enough, Brittas himself doesn't get one until short-lived spin-off ''Get Fit With Brittas", when Lesley Joseph decks him there to shut him up.

** The gynecologist in the series 2 finale, who ropes Linda into helping him deliver a calf before smoothly asking her out to dinner. "You'll be safe...I'm a doctor..."

* HereditaryTwinhood: The titular character has a twin brother (Horatio Brittas), becomes father to no less than two sets of twins over the course of the series and is apparently part of the fourth generation of twins in his family.

* 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 clown appear in the centre who looks just like Gordon Brittas. HilarityEnsues when he tries to seduce all the women.

* TheInspectorIsComing: The plot of the episode "An Inspector Calls" revolves around a visit by the Southern Area Inspector. Brittas is concerned due to the abysmally low attendance figures and his case is not helped by him greeting the inspector [[ItMakesSenseInContext covered in eagle blood]]. Luckily for Brittas, the Southern Area Inspector turns out to be just like him (believes in ''the dream'', more interested in cleanliness and noticeboards than attendence figures etc.) so he doesn't get fired.
* InternalReveal: The identity of the father of Carole’s twins. The audience (and Helen) find out early in Series 2 that the father is [[spoiler: Gordon Brittas]]. However, neither Gordon nor Carol find out until the very end of the year, in Series 7.

* LatexPerfection: 'The Stuff of Dreams' has Brittas, worrying about his mortality and wanting to push age awareness, disguise himself as an old man this way. The result is remarkably effective and it does dupe Colin (although Laura isn't convinced).

* MessianicArchetype: Brittas does have traits of this trope. For starters, his entire purpose in life is to spread peace and harmony throughout the world. Additionally, Series 5 starts with him being betrayed by one of his best friends, like Judas betraying Jesus, and ends with him committing a HeroicSacrifice and dying before being resurrected. This is of course PlayedForLaughs - Brittas' attempts usually go drastically wrong and the entire reason he was resurrected was because he proved to be TooSpicyForYogSothoth.
* MilkingTheGiantCow: One of the CharacterTics of Gordon Brittas is to emphasise anything he says with exaggerated hand movements. {{Lampshaded}} in "Two Little Boys", where it is possible to earn points for managing to get Brittas to do one of a series of specific gestures in the "I-Spy Brittas" game.

* MistakenForCheating: A frequent occurrence in the series, with it being most important in "Bye Bye Baby", (where Carole's husband walks out on her because he believed that she had cheated on him and produced a child with said person), and "Surviving Christmas" (where a mix-up in Christmas cards leads Helen to believe that Brittas and Carole were having an affair with each other).

* MovingAwayEnding: Although not shown on-screen, Series 5 (then intended to be the final series) ends with this fate for several characters. Brittas (alongside his wife Helen and children) is due to moving to Brussels to take up the role of European Commissioner of Sports, Carole is moving to Austria to teach singing lessons to a man's children, and Laura is moving to America to [[BabiesEverAfter raise a child with her reconciled husband]]. When this proved to be a SeriesFauxnale, some of the fates had to be backtracked. Brittas also had a stint being dead at the end of Series 5, so this is revealed to have led to him failing the medical for said job, and the man who Carole was heading off with cheated with a nun, leading to both's return. Laura's departure stuck, however, and she's never mentioned again.

* NoTitle: The first series did not go out with any names. {{Averted}} come Series 2, which had titles provided for it via Magazine/RadioTimes listings, and from Series 3 onwards, where the title for the episode actually shows up in the episode proper.

** Councillor Druggett, who understandably wants to get rid of Gordon Brittas by any means necessary. [[TheScrappy He can be enough of a jerk that you're rooting for Brittas.]]

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

* OpenHeartDentistry: In the finale of series two, we have a veterinarian delivering a pair of twins in the sauna and a gynecologist delivering a calf in the squash court. Both point out that they are not really qualified.

* ThePearlyGates: Gordon Brittas shows up here after his HeroicSacrifice in "The Last Day". He is initially denied access by Saint Peter, but after they receive word of this sacrifice, let him in. They later kick him out through said gates.

** In "Shall We Dance?", Laura gives Brittas some photographs from the time he spent building an arbor for her, with the intention that he keeps these photos as a memento of the hard work he did.

* PocketProtector: Gordon gets shot three times by Julie's police bodyguard in a Series 7 episode. Luckily for Gordon, all three of the bullets hit his cigarette case with "I've been to Gravesend" (given by his wife as a gift) inscribed on it.

* 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 two plants bought in were actually aliens. They conclude that there is NoIntelligentLifeHere and warp out in front of a shocked Colin.

** The pilot of series 3 features Gordon playing with what he presumably assumes to be a toy pistol, which then naturally goes off and hits a wall.
* ReportsOfMyDeathWereGreatlyExaggerated: Happens twice.
** In "Back from the Dead", Brittas is presumed to be dead. In reality, he had spent about a week in a chicken coup in Bulgaria, with the mix-up being because someone had stolen his possessions and were wearing them when they were flattened.
** In "Mr. Brittas Falls In Love", a girl who was having work experience, Rosemary Rawlinson, was believed to have been eaten by a shark. Thankfully, she turns out to have been huddling under a staircase and crying the whole time.

* RoadApples: General rule of thumb; if an animal appears on screen, expect their poop to be mentioned in the series. Notable examples include a pigeon, a dog, and a cat pooping all over the gymnasium in “An Inspector Calls”, Brittas being dragged through emu poop by said emu in “The Old Old Story”, and both Brittas and Helen falling into elephant poop in “The Elephant’s Child”.

* ScaleModelDestruction: Colin presents Brittas with a model of the leisure centre in “Back With A Bang”. Later on, Brittas accidentally sits on it and destroys it.
* SeriousBusiness: Pretty much the entire show is based upon Gordon Brittas taking his job far, far, far too seriously. Just the kind of bureaucratic nightmare manager who insists on banning pensioners from the pool for taking too long to change. Or ousting little children from a charity swimathon because they were wading instead of swimming. Or requiring triplicate claims forms, identification and CCTV footage over a 20 pence piece in a coffee machine. The list goes on...

* TalkingWithSigns: The beginning of the episode "Sex, Lies and Red Tape", has Gordon go on a sponsored silence to fund raise for a trampoline. As a result, to continue running the centre, he communicates with the staff through this. This becomes problematic when he has to use the telephone.

* ThirteenIsUnlucky: The flashbacks in “The Trial”, which involved the deaths of seven gangsters and the grievous bodily harm inflicted on several elderly people, is noted to have taken place on Friday the Thirteenth.

** There’s an odd subversion with Carole, who initially gave birth to a boy and girl (Tom and Emily Parkinson) at the end of Series 2. Tom was then retconned to a girl (now known as Jessica) in Series 5, now making them single gender twins.
** Averted with the twins Helen gives birth to at the end of Series 3, who are Matthew and Mark Brittas.

* WholeEpisodeFlashback: The episode 'In the Beginning' is this, flashing back to the first winter of the leisure centre and telling the tale of how everyone got snowed in over New Year's Day and bonded as a result.

A large supporting cast consists of Gordon's deputy managers [[OnlySaneEmployee Laura Lancing]] (Julia St. John) and [[TheDitz Colin]] [[ThePigPen Weatherby]] (Mike Burns), secretary Angie (Andrée Bernard) - who was quickly replaced by [[SassySecretary Julie Porter]] (Judy Flynn), receptionist [[TheChewToy Carole Parkinson]] (Harriet Thorpe) and pool attendants [[NiceGuy Gavin Featherly]] (Tim Marriott), [[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) and [[DesignatedVillain Councillor Jack Drugget]] (Stephen Churchett). Many of the characters are almost as dysfunctional as Brittas himself.

A BritCom starring Creator/ChrisBarrie running seven series between 1991 and 1997. It was created by Andrew Norriss and Richard Fegen (previously known for producing ''Series/ChanceInAMillion''), and written by them for the first five series, after which they departed and a new team of writers took over. [[note]]The commonly accepted sequence of events is that Series 5 was planned to be the last, but owing to its popularity the BBC recommissioned it anyway, and when the creators turned them down the BBC hired the new writers.[[/note]] ''The Brittas Empire'' is a slightly surrealist look at proud English leisure centre manager Gordon Brittas (Barrie), and his utter failure to manage the fictional Whitbury New Town Leisure Centre. Brittas is an obsessive bureaucrat and a stickler for rules and procedures, no matter what the situation, resulting in catastrophes on a regular basis. According to his wife Helen (Pippa Haywood), he thinks he's the oil that keeps everything running, but he is in fact the grit in the engine. He is a talentless, tactless and hopeless case of the PointyHairedBoss.

A large supporting cast consists of Gordon's deputy managers [[OnlySaneEmployee Laura Lancing]] (Julia St. John) and [[TheDitz Colin]] [[ThePigPen Weatherby]] (Mike Burns), secretary Angie (Andrée Bernard) - who was quickly replaced by [[SassySecretary Julie Porter]] (Judy Flynn), receptionist [[TheChewToy Carole Parkinson]] (Harriet Thorpe) and pool attendants [[NiceGuy Gavin Featherly]] (Tim Marriott), [[DeadpanSnarker Tim Whistler]] (Russell Porter) and [[ActionGirl Linda Perkin]] (Jill Greenacre). Other non-staff characters include Gordon's philandering, unstable, pill-popping wife Helen, sauna/solarium manageress [[TheFriendNobodyLikes Penny Bidmead]] (Anouschka Menzies) and [[DesignatedVillainCouncillor Jack Drugget]] (Stephen Churchett). Many of the characters are almost as dysfunctional as Brittas himself.

A BritCom running seven series between 1991 and 1997. It was created by Andrew Norriss and Richard Fegen (previously known for producing ''Series/ChanceInAMillion''), and written by them for the first five series, after which they departed and a new team of writers took over.[[note]]The commonly accepted sequence of events is that Series 5 was planned to be the last, but owing to its popularity the BBC recommissioned it anyway, and when the creators turned them down the BBC hired the new writers[[/note]] ''The Brittas Empire'' is a slightly surrealist look at proud English leisure centre manager Gordon Brittas, and his utter failure to manage the fictional Whitbury New Town Leisure Centre. Brittas is an obsessive bureaucrat and a stickler for rules and procedures, no matter what the situation, resulting in catastrophes on a regular basis. According to his wife Helen, he thinks he's the oil that keeps everything running, but he is in fact the grit in the engine. He is a talentless, tactless and hopeless case of the PointyHairedBoss.

A large supporting cast consists of Gordon's deputy managers Laura Lancing and Colin Wetherby, secretary Julie Porter, receptionist Carole Parkinson and attendants Gavin Featherly, Tim Whistler and Linda Perkin. Other non-staff characters include Gordon's philandering, broken, narcoholic wife Helen, and the [[DesignatedVillain antagonistic]] Councillor Jack Druggett. Many of the characters are almost as dysfunctional as Gordon himself.

The show stars Creator/ChrisBarrie, who landed the leading role on the show during the various multi-year hiatuses between series on ''Series/RedDwarf''. Barrie ultimately took a hiatus from ''Red Dwarf'' when the latter show's shooting schedule conflicted with that of ''The Brittas Empire'', though he made a couple of appearances and returned to the series as a regular when ''The Brittas Empire'' finished.

Now has a [[Characters/TheBrittasEmpire Character Sheet.]]

!!"''Welcome to Whitbury New Town Tropes Centre, how may I help yooou?'' (With a smile)":

After the end of the show, a short miniseries (''Get Fit With Brittas'') was aired in 1997, which aimed to educate the public on physical health and exercise.

[[folder:Tropes relating to ''Get Fit With Brittas'']]
* AsHimself: A recurring character is Mark Porter, a ''Radio Times'' doctor at the time who was playing as himself. The [[SpecialGuest Special Guests]] which show up also count.
* BreakingTheFourthWall: Seeing as this is a show which is meant to educate the public, this is a given, with Brittas frequently addressing the audience.
* EdutainmentShow: Although it is delivered in a humorous manner, the main intent of this miniseries was to teach the public how to keep themselves fit and healthy.
* FromTheAshes: The entire series came and went several months after the conclusion of the final series of the parent show.
* GenreShift: From a purely [[WorkCom workplace-based comedy]] to an EdutainmentShow based on healthy living with some humorous elements.
* GroinAttack: Brittas is kicked in the nuts by Lesley Joseph for being an annoying twat.
* OutOfFocus: Compared to the main series, Colin, Helen, and Julie have much less focus here, only appearing in one episode each out of a six-episode miniseries. It's still a better showing than the rest of the staff outside of Brittas, who are complete no-shows.
* SequelNonEntity: Carole, Linda, Tim and Gavin do not appear whatsoever in this miniseries.
* ShipTease: Brittas is quite flirty with Joesph.
* SpecialGuest: Each episode would usually have at least one celebrity show up to assist in educating the public. For instance, "Gordon Works It Out" had Lesley Joseph (who starred in ''Series/BirdsOfAFeather'') playing herself.
* TheTelevisionTalksBack: At one point in "Gordon Works It Out", Brittas converses with ''Radio Times'' doctor Mark Porter whilst he's on TV.
* WorkoutFanservice: At separate points, Julie and Brittas are seen working out with very revealing outfits.
[[/folder]]

* WaxingLyrical: The episode "That Creeping Feeling" gives us this dialogue between the psychiatrist Alan Matthews (who had been analysing the staff and had concluded that Brittas was the cause of their stress) and Brittas:
--> '''Matthews''': Dreams can be dangerous. I sometimes think we can be better off without them.
--> '''Brittas''': But you've got to have a Dream. If you don't have a Dream, how you gonna make a dream come true?

* AnimalAssassin: The episode “That Creeping Feeling” had someone try to keep Brittas by sending over a pair of highly poisonous spiders. One of them eats the other in transit, then bites Colin instead (although he survives in the end).

* AsHimself: 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.

* AsHimself: On top of the special guests, a recurring character is Mark Porter, a ''Radio Times'' doctor at the time who was playing as himself.

* TheTelevisionTalksBack: At one point in "Gordon Works It Out", Brittas converses with Radio Times doctor Mark Porter whilst he's on TV.

* MistakenForGay: {{Inverted}}. Brittas spends the majority of the series believing that Tim and Gavin are both single men who are still looking for female love. In truth, they're both gay and in a loving relationship with each other. There an early episode where he suspects that Tim is gay at least, but he otherwise remains oblivious to his true sexuality.