The film details Norman Stanley Fletcher's life over the 25 years since his release from Slade Prison. The majority of the programme features surviving members of the cast of the original series, in character, with Ronnie Barker appearing as Fletcher at the end of the programme.
The absence of Fletcher's naïve young cellmate Godber, played by Richard Beckinsale who died in 1979, is explained in a scene in which Fletcher's daughter Ingrid receives a phone call from Godber to say that he is stuck in traffic and will not be able to appear in the "documentary".