Teen-age gang leaders Passion and Little Sister are released from prison, only to find that their gang the Slags has disbanded due to a rival gang, the Hawaiians, who wear garlands and drink Pina Coladas.

Ali is a young Egyptian screenwriter determined to succeed in London, where he has been a student. He loves the artistic and political freedom, the colours, the music, the individualism. But he has little money, his student visa is about to expire and he has been thrown out of his lodgings. And so Ali moves in with a succession of eccentric and colourful London flatmates: Mark, a photographer with a very individual style, Linda, a young, blonde, very sexy model and Marilyn Monroe impersonator, and Miss Stevenson who is convinced that Ali is the reincarnation of her long dead Egyptian lover.