Maurice and Ian are successful, but aging actors. The two are close friends whose conversation generally revolves around theatrical shop talk and the infirmities of other aging actors. Ian is fearful that death is right around the corner, so he agrees to let his niece's daughter, Jessie, move in to his flat to care for him. Jessie is a modern woman in her early twenties. She turns out to be a nightmare for Ian, especially since she is a hard-drinking, rude, and dismissive brat. But Maurice sees something else in the young woman, a potential for humanity which blossoms under his kindness and gentle guidance. For Maurice, something else blossoms as well - romantic love for a girl fifty years younger.
Maurice, a still-working actor whiles away his dwindling days playing bit parts (corpses, mostly) or at the local pub with a pair of equally frail footlights friends, drama queen Ian and taciturn Donald. Ian announces that his niece has sent her wayward daughter to stay with him. Jessie is a borderline hooligan, surly, self-centered, willful, and a prodigious drinker. Maurice looks at Jessie with unapologetic longing, appreciating things she can't see in herself, but also the idea of youth--specifically, womanly youth. Jessie appraises Maurice to see what she can get out of him, and they play at Henry Higgins tutoring Eliza Doolittle together. Both are prickly, independent egoists, and wherever they're going, neither is going quietly.