US soap queen Pat Bedford is the biggest thing on American television. She has three houses, a pool and an open-top Mercedes. Margaret is a waitress in a motorway cafeteria. She lives in a bedsit above a shop in Lancashire. But, Pat and Margaret are sisters, separated when they were young girls.

After 27 years, to their surprise (and Pat's horror), the pair are reunited live on national television. Pat wants nothing to do with her frumpy relative, but in the glare of the tabloid press, she has no choice but to play along - and while Margaret is initially swept along in a tidal wave of paparazzi and champagne, she struggles to make a connection between the soap star and the sister she shared a life with all those years ago.

A persistent newshound with a nose for celebrity scandal is soon on Pat's trail and the sisters are forced to escape together back to the North - to a world of shell suits, domineering mothers and skeletons in the family closet.