When taxi business owner Max Vivaldi hires Danny Baveystock - an antique expert from an auction house in London - to come over to his home town of Mumbles, Swansea to value his bakelite telephone, his high maintenance family are less than impressed with the £200 estimated once fees have been deducted. However over dinner, Danny finds a much more interesting case when Max recounts how a will of one his ancestors entitled the Vivaldi's to a stake of land that now constitutes the whole city, and as such makes Max the rightful owner of Swansea. Interested by the possibilities, Danny enlists the aid of his fellow London colleagues to work on verifying Max's claim.

Meanwhile Danny takes in the Swansea sites with Max's eldest daughter Maria, who takes him to the pub with her on the way to meet her boyfriend Gethin. But the evening is cut short when Gethin announces he has been having an affair with a woman at work and breaks up with Maria. Upset she goes to confront the woman the next day but