The series was set primarily in Utterley, a fictional Lancashire mining town in the 1930s, Brass satirized working-class period dramas of the 1970s, most significantly When the Boat Comes In, and also the 1977 Granada TV dramatisation of Dickens' Hard Times, which also starred Timothy West.

Unusually for ITV comedies of the time, Brass eschewed a laugh track and used a dry sense of humour based in part on convoluted wordplay and subtle commentary on popular culture.

Bradley spouted Thatcherite rhetoric, while coming up with harebrained schemes to make his businesses more efficient so he could sack workers.

The head of the Fairchilds was the stern "Red" Agnes, who spread militant socialist rhetoric around the Hardacre mine, mill and munitions factory and her doltish, forelock-tugging husband George who is dominated by his wife and his boss.

Despite his wealth and social connections, Bradley had been brought up in the Utterley Cottage workhouse and had made his money himself, obviously not legally or fairly.