Nigel Havers is the suave and deadly Ralph Ernest Gorse, a.k.a. The Charmer - minor public schoolboy, social climber, seducer of women and eternal seeker after the main chance; his stalking grounds are the roadhouses, boarding rooms and grand seaside hotels of the 1930's, the haunts of vulnerable widows and ambitious swindlers. Gorse is no English hero in the traditional sense of the word. He is a psychopath with the plausible charm of every mother's son, a Lothario whose conquests are merely a means to obtaining what he really craves - money and power.