Pub landlord and frequent holidaymaker Vic Flange flirts with the young widow Sadie Tompkins as his wife, Cora, looks on with disdain.

Their friend Harry, who is prone to violent twitches, arrives and reveals that the package holiday Vic has booked to the Mediterranean island Elsbels,[a] which is on the Costa Bomm, also includes Sadie, much to Cora's outrage.

Among them are the sex-starved Stanley Blunt and his unsupportive wife Evelyn; drunken Eustace Tuttle; Scotsman Bert Conway; friends Lily and Marge, who are each hoping to find a man to fall in love with; and some monks, including Brother Bernard, who is having difficulty fitting into his new life.

The hotel also hides various faults, and Pepe is overrun with complaints: Evelyn finds Mr Tuttle in her bath; Vic discovers Sadie naked in his shower; Lily and Marge's wardrobe has no back to it, allowing them to be accidentally seen by Brother Bernard in the opposite room; sand pours out of Moira's taps; the lavatory drenches Bert; and the phone system is faulty.

Dinner on the first night is foul, and made more unpleasant by the smoke from the burning food in the kitchen, which forces the holiday-makers to open the windows, prompting the arrival of mosquitos.

Marge takes a shine to Brother Bernard, and they develop a romance, while Lily lures a man named Nicholas away from his jealous (and, it is implied, gay) friend, Robin.

Vic samples a local drink, "Santa Cecilia’s Elixir", which blesses the drinker with X-ray vision, and he manages to see through women's clothing.

Travelling well-trodden paths of slapstick, double entendre and nudging innuendo, the itinerary this time whisks the team off on an ill-fated package holiday to the island of 'Elsbels'.

Foreign language difficulties provide Talbot Rothwell with ample scope to indulge his weakness for puns (enunciating his name, 'Stuart Farquhar' for the Spanish hotelier, Kenneth Williams gets the predictable come-back, 'Stupid what?