Mike Leigh writes and directs this class struggle comedy drama which portrays the intertwined lives of an extended working-class family in London during the Thatcher years. The story follows left-wing bike messenger Cyril Bender (Philip Davis), his girlfriend Shirley (Ruth Sheen) and Cyril's conservative mother (Edna Dore), who lives in the last council house on her street next to the appallingly upper-class Boothe-Braines (Lesley Manville and David Bamber). Cyril's consumerist sister Valerie (Heather Tobias) and her car salesman husband Martin (Philip Jackson) join the family to throw a surprise 70th birthday party for Mrs Bender but, despite their best intentions, the event descends into disaster.