Beautiful wealthy American businesswoman meets eccentric Irishman on an Italian train, who sets out to woo her. What ensues is something neither imagined happening.
Lily, an American travelling on the famous Orient Express train from Venice, Italy to Paris, France, suddenly runs into her former lover, Alex, who met and had a tender romance ten years earlier while vacationing in France, which ended abruptly when he walked out on her without saying a word. Now Alex tries to make up for lost time with Lily while she digs into his past to find out what haunting secrets that he has which led to their abrupt break-up.
In this off-beat musical – a satire that combines fantasy, social observation and songs – a working class man goes to put a deposit on a new house only to find he prefers spending to saving and is happy to spend his money on a few hours of happiness rather than a lifetime's conventionality.
Battle-axe Emma Hornett dominates her hen-pecked husband Henry, his meek sister Edie and daughter Shirley. Shirley is to marry young sailor Albert,raised in an orphanage,and he and best man Carnoustie stay with the Hornetts on the eve of the wedding, though Emma makes sure the stag night is a brief one. Next day Albert fails to show up for the wedding. He eventually turns up at the house and confides in the vicar that if family life is anything like the Hornetts he wants no part of it. When the Hornetts are told this Emma declares that she sees that has been a "very wicked woman" and will mend her ways but, as the young couple eventually marry and move into their own house , one wonders how long her change of heart will last.
Fender is a lowly clerk in the warehouse of clothing manufacturers Ranting and Co. His one ambition is to have an overcoat of his own. Refused one by the cold hearted Ranting he asks a tailor friend, Morry, to make him one instead, but dies of cold before he can take delivery of it. Unwilling to give up his only desire even in death, he returns as a ghost to persuade Morry to steal him the overcoat he so coveted in life.
