A young couple's lives are turned upside down when an unscrupulous brewery installs a nightmare tenant at the pub next door.

SYNOPSIS:

Sebastian and Jenny celebrate their wedding in their local pub. They know that the landlord is retiring and selling the building to a brewery to help pay for his wife’s medical treatment.

When Sebastian and Jenny return from their honeymoon, they discover that the brewery have installed a nightmare tenant, Rab, and his equally awful wife, Edna, to run the pub. Gone are the relaxing Sunday lunches in the garden – the pub is now a magnet for loutish football fans and underage drinkers.

Rab and Edna hold their wedding in the pub on a weeknight, keeping Sebastian and Jenny up until the small hours. As a result, Jenny can’t function at work and almost loses a major sponsorship deal. Sebastian’s father then asks him to rewrite their company’s website in time for an important conference, which will mean him putting in long hours at work.

With the pub becoming more unbearable, Sebastian and Jenny have no option but to raise their concerns with the county council. The council refer them to Tiffany in the licensing department and she asks them to collect evidence that the pub isn’t adhering to the licensing conditions.

With their jobs on the line, and Jenny suffering recurrent early miscarriages, their lives begin to fall apart. Sebastian copes by throwing himself into work at the expense of his relationship, while Jenny pursues the council to take action against Rab and Edna.

The antisocial behaviour at the pub becomes so bad that the council eventually call a hearing to review Rab and Edna’s licence to trade. The police, concerned residents, the council, Sebastian and Jenny, the brewery, and Rab and Edna all make their case at the hearing. Things seems to be going Sebastian and Jenny’s way until Bill Richards, the council’s environmental health officer, chooses not to take action against the pub, and Sebastian and Jenny’s case falls apart. The council imposes no restrictions on the pub’s licence so Rab and Edna are free to continue making their lives a misery.

Sebastian and Jenny take matters into their own hands and decide to investigate why Bill wouldn’t let environmental health make a representation at the hearing. They discover that he has a private company that advises tenants and breweries how to deal with problem neighbours. Sebastian and Jenny bring this conflict of interest to the attention of the council, and Bill is suspended from his role.

It transpires that Rab is paying Bill’s company not to investigate the pub. This allows them to sell huge quantities of alcohol to underage and problem drinkers, to which the greedy brewery turns a blind eye because takings are so good.

When Sebastian discovers that Rab is also selling drugs from the pub, he and the police hatch a plan to catch him out. They convince Sebastian’s best man, Michael, to pose as a buyer. However, Bill has warned Rab that the police are onto him and he avoids the trap. The police now have no power to bring a case against the pub.

With Bill having been sacked by the council, Tiffany takes over as environmental health manager. When she witnesses the problems at the pub firsthand, she calls another review into the licence and the council’s earlier ruling is overturned. Rab and Edna are deemed unfit tenants and the brewery’s licence to trade is revoked.

Sebastian finishes the company website in time for the conference, and a now-pregnant Jenny secures the financial backing her charity needed.

MENACE