Jean (Virginia McKenna) and Matt (Bill Travers) are a struggling married couple, with Matt trying to scrape out a living as a writer. Out of the blue, they receive a telegram informing them that Matt's long-lost uncle has died and left them his business - a cinema in the town of Sloughborough. They pack their bags and travel to Sloughborough expecting to sell the cinema to gain a huge inheritance. However, they discover the cinema is falling apart and is run by a comically incompetant staff who seem to have worked there forever. They set out with a plan to sell it, but things don't quite go as planned.