High in the remote Welsh mountains, five builders are bought together to renovate a sprawling old farmhouse. Housed in mouldy portacabins, tensions soon simmer between the men and the self-entitled aristocratic homeowner, as well as amongst the rag tag group of men themselves. World-weary old timer Dave and kindly Foreman Bob try to keep the peace. But his nephew Steve falls under the malign influence of bigot Jim, the pair taking a dislike to Viktor, a Ukranian labourer. As the weather closes in and payments are late, tempers fray. Blood is spilled. As the blue-collar men are confronted with an increasingly dark spiral of moral choices, Jim makes an astonishing proposition.

A young Jew in 1911 Wales tries to make his living by selling fabrics door to door, but to do so he must hide his nationality. On one of his sales he meets and falls in love with a demure young woman with a strong-willed father and a Jew-hating brother. The two fall in love and she becomes pregnant, but only then does she learn of his ethnic background. When anti-Jewish riots break out, the two are forced to flee and become separated.

A wanna-be author feels pressured to move beyond her meandering writing career and get a more stable job. She decides to organize a Shakespeare festival, a plan that could have tricky ramifications for her marriage.