A rare "Britcom" that didn't make it stateside via PBS - despite audience familiarity with its lead via the series RED DWARF - THE BRITTAS EMPIRE follows Gordon Brittas (Chris Barrie, LARA CROFT: TOMB RAIDER), the manager of the new Whitbury New Town Leisure Centre, who manages to alienate (if not downright infuriate) his staff, laborers, customers, and even his family - including "basket case" wife Helen (Pippa Haywood, TV's MR. SELFRIDGE), who is transformed into more of a basket case with her own quirks as the series goes on - with well-intended advice and a general obliviousness to its reception (usually because he does not understand the cause of the physical attacks - including assassination attempts - against him or others wind up being the unintended targets). On the receiving end of his devastating ... and also interceding between Brittas and the public are his long-suffering staff including his manager level-headed Laura (Julia St. John) and bumbling Colin (Michael Burns), neurotic receptionists Carole (Harriet Thorpe, CALENDER GIRLS) - who keeps her baby in her desk drawer - and Julie (Judy Flynn), lovestruck trainer Linda (Jill Greenacre), as well as Tim (Russell Porter) and Gavin (Tim Marriott) whose relationship is obvious to everyone but Brittas (with Gavin being the first one Brittas usually suspects whenever he suspects some "hanky panky" going on with female staff or members in the centre).

Whereas Barrie's RED DWARF character let whatever small amount of authority he was given go to his head out of a sense of inferiority, Gordon Brittas is well-meaning and without malice; yet he wreaks an incredible amount of havoc (usually psychologically inadvertently leading others to the physical mishaps). His own patience is thoroughly tested, and yet he demonstrates a greater degree of patience than some of the characters who have to put up with him. Over the course of fifty episodes, there is quite a bit of variations on the same basic scenarios - Brittas trying to whip things into shape before an important visitor, Brittas driving the most pacifistic of customers/guest speakers to violent rage, Brittas trying to curb on-site hanky panky or suspected thievery, Brittas being totally oblivious to serious attempts on his life, Helen becoming increasingly unhinged, Carole's multiple pregnancies (and babies getting lost in the centre), large animals or poison insects wandering around loose in the building, electrical mishaps and explosive catastrophes from which Brittas usually emerges without a scratch - but the results are still hilarious and rewarding.