Mike works in Hamway's Hardware Store in London, along with Kenny, Steve and Rex. Kenny is smug, worldly and somewhat overbearing, Steve, a student, is a trainee, and Rex, the boss, has a juvenile obsession with sex belying his late-middle-age years and 40 year marriage.

The four relax at the nearby (next-door-but-one) Nice Day café, staffed by Mike's girlfriend Anne and the blowsy Julie. The hardware boys endure an antagonistic relationship with their customers, being keen to deal with the professionals who know what they want but brooking no sympathy for the DIY ditherers they regard as time-wasters. Their conversations stray into laddishness but Mike tries, unsuccessfully, to rise above it all. At home with Anne, he displays a more sensitive side to his nature, though their mainly sturdy relationship still suffers the normal ups and downs of modern love.

Hardware was another sitcom from the ubiquitous Simon Nye. Martin Freeman, a busy actor for years who became a major figure with The Office and Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, consolidated his success and turned in an appealing performance at the centre of a witty show that fulfilled all its promise.