Half-way through his 12-year prison sentence for an incompetent armed robbery, Jimmy Hands gets a lucky break: he's transferred to a prison from which he can probably escape. He convinces the governor to stage a musical in an old chapel next to the prison's outer wall. He rounds up volunteer actors and puts his escape plan into production. Two other barriers, besides the wall, confront him: the arrival of a nasty inmate, John Toombes, who insists on joining the escape, and Jimmy's feelings of attraction for Anabel, a social worker who agrees to appear in the play. Opening night approaches: is this Jimmy's breakout performance?

After a wealthy philanthropist expresses an unusual interest in a ring found by her niece Annabelle, Miss Fritton explains that she's descended from a pirate who, in 1598, stole treasure from another: the philanthropist's ancestor. This discovery sends the racuous girls of St. Trinians on the hunt for buried treasure.

Two 19th-century opportunists become serial killers so that they can maintain their profitable business supplying cadavers to an anatomist.