Plot

Martin Bryce lives in a quiet suburban close with his wife Ann. He does his best to "organise" the leisure time of all of the other inhabitants of the close, running umpteen societies and doing "good works".

Martin Bryce (Richard Briers) is a committee man. He has numerous schemes and committees organized around the neighborhood. He is so obsessive about every detail of everything he does, he is driving his long-suffering wife, Anne (Dame Penelope Wilton), slowly crazy. Then the new neighbor Paul Ryman (Peter Egan) arrives. He has a more worldly outlook than those who live under Martin's organizational spell. There is an immediate clash of personalities because Martin treats everything so seriously, but to Paul, life is for enjoying and not to be taken so seriously.