Half a Sixpence is a simple morality tale. Arthur Kipps is a humble shop assistant with little more to his name than his dreams and the faithful love Ann Pornick, to whom he pledges himself by splitting a sixpence and keeping half each. Fate intervenes however and Arthur comes into a fortune and his whole life changes.

He becomes entangled with a society lady, Helen Walsingham, and her spendthrift brother and Arty begins to lose contact with his old friends from the store and worse still, his beloved Ann. Will Arty see the error of his ways in time or will Young Walsingham relieve him of this fortune and his future?

It is all an excuse for razzle-dazzle singing and dancing, memorable tunes, comic characters and ridicule of the upper classes, all served up with a hefty dose of British whimsy.