It’s hard to make an honest living on the farm. Then they ruin your pub with chemical beer. Time to fight back!
1989. The farmers of Botteley, their dignity eroded by the EC with its regulations and set-aside, find they are faced with an equally unpalatable alternative. The local whizz-kid wants to buy their land and swamp the valley with a time-share complex, including golf courses, leisure centres, etc. Then their pub gets refurbished by a national company, in the style of a Euro-pub, with insipid beer and foreign cooking.
Driven by the local legends, as told by their resident historian, they fight back. They restart the local brewery, subvert the regulations and thwart the authorities through their devious wit and the strategic use of their farm animals.
Throughout, a persistent Ministry inspector, keen to bring Botteley into line with every possible European regulation, is thwarted by a succession of cows, goats, geese, etc. and also by the physical representation of the mythical Great Worm. As are Inspectors from other agencies.
The historian creates a myth that an independent kingdom once existed in the valley. Amplified by the school pageant and the revived beers, this converts the drive for individuality into a fierce movement for independence, the climax to which comes during their annual agricultural show.