The Brittas Empire



The Brittas Empire is a British sitcom created and originally written by Andrew Norriss and Richard Fegen. Chris Barrie played Gordon Brittas, the well-meaning but incompetent manager of Whitbury New Town Leisure Centre.

Plot
The Brittas Empire is a British sitcom created and originally written by Richard Fegen and Andrew Norriss. Chris Barrie plays Gordon Brittas, the well-meaning but incompetent manager of Whitbury New Town Leisure Centre. The show ran for seven series with 52 episodes, from 1991 to 1997 on BBC 1. Fegen and Norriss wrote the first five series, after which they left the show.

Gordon Brittas (played by Chris Barrie) is the well-meaning but incompetent manager of Whitbury New Town Leisure Centre. He trained at the fictional Aldershot Leisure Centre. Completely tactless, totally annoying and forever coming up with 'half-baked' ideas, Brittas is frequently upsetting his staff, public, and neurotic wife Helen, often bringing destruction and death into their lives.

Helen Brittas (Pippa Haywood) finds it increasingly difficult to cope with Gordon, and often turns to pills and affairs with other men to maintain her sanity. She is also helped by supportive friend Laura Lancing (Julia St. John), Brittas's calm and efficient deputy. Laura (though she is fully aware of his incompetence) has a grudging admiration for Brittas whom she regards as honest and decent - unlike her former husband (who in one episode tries to buy his back way into the her affections by making a large donation to the centre).

Brittas's other deputy — the dim-witted Colin Weatherby (Michael Burns) — has several skin allergies and an infected hand. Though he is technically an assistant manager, he works as the centre's handyman-cum-janitor. Carole (Harriet Thorpe) is the unfortunate and often tearful receptionist who keeps her three children in the tardis-sized drawers of reception, and amongst other members of the team is Julie (Judy Flynn), the fiery-tongued secretary who hates her boss and refuses to do any work. Lively Linda (played by Jill Greenacre), gentle-hearted Gavin (Tim Marriott), and his paranoid partner Tim (Russell Porter) are more co-operative members of the team.