SERIES 5 - First broadcast 1994

1. The Old, Old Story

The Centre is rebuilt! Celebrating this, Songs of Praise films there. Pam Rhodes awaits an interview with Brittas, but he typically is being distracted by the many things that are going wrong. Helen has found some super-pills that give her energy and much-lacking self-confidence, so much so that she hijacks the interview and needs to be told off by Pam; but the pills also make her sleep after the high has faded. To add to the chaos, there appears to be a(nother) serial killer running loose in the Leisure Centre! It turns out to be an ostrich with a habit of defacating regularly and in great quantity, but it’s eaten 14 of Helen’s pills, and so drags Brittas around the Centre and wrecks the song rehearsal. With so many people being seriously injured in the incident, Laura thinks very seriously that Councillor Druggit’s suggestion that Brittas hunts for promotion is actually quite a good idea. Brittas finds a leaflet about European possibilities and thinks of a bigger dream than just Whitbury!

First broadcast: 31st Oct 1994

2. Blind Devotion

It’s not Colin’s day, even though it’s his birthday. His back garden exploded so he’s temporarily blinded yet still comes into work to show his true loyalty to Brittas and the Leisure Centre. Colin has more woe to tell: his accountant has run off with his life savings; his favourite aunt has died; Brittas accidentally kills his canary; and is planning to sack him just because of his incompetency. But he never quite gets round to it, as the Centre is on "Emergency Toilet Procedure Green (‘E.T.P. Green’)" because the sewage system has backed up. Helen wants a divorce as she’s scared to go to Brussels where it’ll be hard to understand the emergency services. Laura consoles her with pills, chocolate, whiskey and cigarettes. Brittas is too busy to talk to her because of the catastrophes Colin has caused by working whilst being blind, including accidentally attempting to drown four people in the pool. In the end, Colin’s eyesight is restored and he’s even promoted; and Helen decides to go to Brussels with Brittas after all!

First broadcast: 7th Nov 1994

3. Brussels Calling

Brittas is away at interview, but still remains in regular ‘phone contact with the Centre, as often as he possibly can which ends up being every few seconds, to ensure that everything runs smoothly, as he would hope. Rather, things run as if he was still there; his mixed messages cause many catastrophes to ensue. Meanwhile, Helen has been charged with attempted murder because her son’s English teacher under-marked her doing of her son’s homework, so she drove her car at him, through two walls! The said teacher comes into the Centre for his child’s birthday party, and suffers at Brittas’ distant hands, which leads him to drop the charges against Helen, who gets along very well with a lawyer acquaintance of Julie’s! With only a minor explosion, rate in a toilet biting someone’s bottom, the treat of Wiles disease in the swimming pool, and a sobbing birthday party at the hands of a miserable Tim trying not very hard to be "Mr. Jolly", the day doesn’t seem to have gone so badly really.

First broadcast: 14th Nov 1994

4. The Lies Have It

Brittas is giving the staff a safety talk because of the explosion that occurred last episode, and is encouraging them to think about how they’d ever cope if he wasn’t there: the prospect fills Julie with great excitement! Of course, Brittas’ hazard prevention causes more hazards than it solves: he knocks a builder out with a slab of concrete, whose blow-torch heats up a pipe thus causing a builder’s hair to set fire when he combs his hair with the metal comb which was resting on it; another builder cooks and gets heat-stroke when laying on a metal table; and then to top it all off, an electric wire severs and fall on the builders’ van, killing them. Meanwhile, Helen needs to cover up for her affair the previous night, and Farrell invents a very creative story about Carole having a birthday party, which Brittas sees right through, and ends up thinking that Farrell, not Helen, has had needed to cover up an affair.

First broadcast: 21st Nov 1994

5. The Boss

Gavin is spending a day running the Centre. Well, theoretically so, but Brittas is "helpfully" back-seat driving alongside him all day, and of course Gavin is too nice a bloke to say no to anything Brittas says (some might say it’s how he got there in the first place!). Moreover, Brittas arranges lots of "helpful" safety exercises for Gavin to cope with, to test his management skills. But, typically, all goes pear-shaped as Brittas forces Gavin to turf out a party because of a fake "catastrophe"; then the leader of the party becomes very cross and attacks Gavin, as does Carole whose boyfriend has just died, because Gavin accidentally insulted her thinking the sorry situation was another fake one from the hands of Brittas. Colin has become too enthusiastically involved with the scenario, as he has "helpfully" trapped a woman in a sun-bed as Brittas instructed him to, and she ends up cooked to well-done! Hang on a minute, did he just ask Colin to say someone was trapped in a sunbed?

First broadcast: 28th Nov 1994

6. Pregnant

Most of the staff, apparently, are pregnant! There’s Suzie, who doesn’t take it well and bites Brittas; Linda, who is very excited because her retired boyfriend and her only started to try recently for a child; and Carole (who considers carefully how she’ll fit more children in the Reception drawers), so Brittas thinks that she ought to marry Colin, the alleged father, so she can be an honest woman. Colin makes an rickety crib, so Carole is fearful about him being a father. Tim is also pregnant, apparently, so Brittas assumes that he must be a woman, and attacks him to try and get his clothes off to prove this! Gavin comes to his aid, and Laura sensibly suggests that something might be wrong with the tests. She’s right: Julie replaced all of the "pregnant" samples with her own, so this is a happy event to go alongside her engagement!

First broadcast: 5th Dec 1994

7. UXB

It’s 1941 and bomber jets are dropping bombs over Whitbury. Just where the Leisure Centre has been built. Colin finds a bomb in the wall of his room and wonders what to do with it. He accidentally gets knocked out by Gavin, who is angry that Brittas would rather have appointed her manager than him and hits a ball from Brittas’ croquet set from the first floor fire exit landing, which lands on Colin’s head. Carole also has problems as a D.S.S. man investigates reports that she’s keeping children in drawers behind the desk (surely not!). She shuts herself away in Baby Ben’s cupboard because she’s scared of her children being taken away; when the D.S.S. man hears her and the children singing, he offers her the post of governess to his family! Indeed, there are happy endings for all the staff: Brittas has a new job to further his dream, and Helen will be looking forward to the luxurious lifestyle, high salary, and many houses and maids; Laura is moving to Chicago with her billionaire husband; Gavin will become manager of the Centre and looks forward to appointing Tim as the Deputy Manager, as well as moving into the Brittas’ old place; Linda has been accepted into Theological College; and Julie is marrying her rich fiancée who owns a brewery. Brittas ponders whether or not he should go to Brussels, and Laura explains that Europe needs him. He sends the removal van off with his stuff, including the bomb in his croquet set!

First broadcast: 12th Dec 1994

8. The Last Day

Preparations are going really well for Brittas’ last day at the Centre and Gavin is really excited to be taking over as Manager and appointing Tim as his Deputy Manager. But there’s a last-minute hitch: the Germans are refusing to go ahead with the contract regarding funding for European sport, so Brittas is refusing to start his new job as European Commissioner for Sport, on principle, unless they change their minds and go ahead with the first deal. He is also building an emergency water tank in case the sprinkler system fails and the fire service can’t attend a fire, but this lies right over Carole’s extended cupboard; the D.I.Y. extension causes the water tank to fall through three floors. It would have fallen onto Carole, trapped in Reception in a toy car, but Brittas pushes her out of the way. The water tank falls on Brittas and crushes him dead. The staff are actually upset at Brittas’ death, but especially his close followers, Colin and Laura. Brittas, despite having lots of reasons not to get into Heaven as listed by St. Peter, is allowed in because he gave his life to rescue someone else. This is a decision soon regretted, for Brittas irritates St. Peter too much with organising endless sports matches, so he’s sent back to earth to live out some of his dream. The funeral proceeds, but just as Brittas is being laid to rest, we hear knocking inside the coffin......

First broadcast: 19th Dec 1994

Christmas Special: In the Beginning

It’s 2019. The staff have progressed since leaving the Leisure Centre to go onto higher things: Laura has a 19 year old son, Barney; Colin owns a castle in Scotland; Carole is a world-class concert pianist; Linda is an Archdeacon and Julie is her P.A. (her elderly boyfriend has died); Gavin is an M.P., and is still with Tim, now a writer. Carole’s twins are at Cambridge with Laura’s Barney, and Baby Ben now works in the Navy because he still likes enclosed spaces! Barney asks Laura why she must go to the annual reunion held in memory of Brittas, which leads her to recount the story of a special Christmas at the Leisure Centre. The staff were snowed in and through irritating community-building activities, Brittas got the staff to bond as a team. So they’ve celebrated Christmas together ever since. Laura and Barney arrive to the celebration at Colin’s castle, where Brittas, is now ironically a U.N. peace envoy, sets about insulting and offending everyone; but as Laura says, they wouldn’t have him any other way!

First broadcast: 27th Dec 1994