It's the early 1950s and, in a small seaside town, a group of mates in the building trade find there is nothing better than escaping to their own world - the Figaro Club. Their inscrutable leader, Big Jim, is a carpenter by day and at the centre of a club that has its own private language and call-to-arms. Their nemesis is the Chief of Works at the council office, Harold Perkins, a dictator of epic proportions whose social climbing knows no bounds.