| Director | Dick Clement |
|---|
Chequers. Denis Thatcher, idiotic consort of Britain's first female prime minister, is far too drunk to notice that one of his domestic staff, Boris, is a Russian spy who has installed listening devices in the daffodils. Much more serious to him is that the Rear Admiral who is his housekeeper has locked the drinks cabinet and hidden the key. While his wife is in Brussels negotiating a rebate from the heads of the EEC, Denis invites his golfing and drinking cronies, the Major and Maurice Picarda, to the PM's official residence for a weekend of festivities. Unfortunately, Margaret returns unexpectedly, having invited the French, German and American envoys to the house.
Despite their extreme intoxication, Denis's two pals somehow make it into the grounds of Chequers, leaving a crashed car behind and with the Thatchers' security detail in hot pursuit. US envoy Hamilton Thisp arrives but Eric, the Thatchers' enthusiastically violent Special Branch man, knocks him unconscious, thinking he's one of the intruders. When the Thatchers encounter Maurice and the Major, Denis, always terrified of incurring his wife's displeasure, disclaims all knowledge of them, but the PM thinks the two intruders are foreign envoys, partly because they're too drunk to be comprehensible, and takes them into the conference room. Word then reaches Eric that the actual German and French envoys have arrived: he detains Maurice and the Major on suspicion of being terrorists.
As the domestic staff are all on strike, Margaret orders Denis to wait on the envoys. The Major tries to escape the house by shinning down a drainpipe, but finds police dogs waiting for him and thinks better of it. Thisp has regained consciousness and goes on the loose, but Eric apprehends him again, still convinced he's a drunk driver, and insists he provide a urine sample. Vouvray, the French envoy, is fascinated by Margaret and wants closer European integration. He finds Denis, lying underneath the drinks cabinet and trying to drill through the bottom. Vouvray promises him alcohol in exchange for 'one moment alone' with Margaret. Thisp enters with a full beaker; Vouvray presents Denis with this. He tells Margaret to meet him at the bottom of the garden, exits the house and is savaged by guard dogs.
Schubert, the German, is also fascinated by Margaret; while enthusiastically talking about involving her in his plans for world domination, he sets aside his spectacles. Meanwhile, his trousers irretrievably ruined, the Major puts on one of Margaret's costumes as part of a plan to escape the house. Schubert mistakes him for the real thing. Now badly concussed, Thisp takes a polaroid of the couple, thinking Schubert is Denis and the Major is Margaret. Schubert tells the Major to meet him at the bottom of the garden, exits the house and is also savaged by guard dogs.
Denis re-enters, having ordered a limousine for his friends to escape in; Thisp wants another photo, which Denis and the Major pose for. Denis exits to fetch the limousine, but Margaret re-enters, causing the Major to hide in the cubbyhole where Boris transmits to Moscow. Denis re-enters, and Thisp finally gets his photo of the real couple. The Major exits from Boris's hiding-place and Margaret sees him. Picarda enters, also wearing one of Margaret's costumes. The two take advantage of Margaret's astonishment to walk out to their waiting limousine, as Denis tells his wife with dignity that these are his closest friends. Margaret, intrigued by a side of Denis she had never suspected, tells him she will be waiting upstairs. Denis flees in abject terror.