Ruth Ellis lives with her ten-year old son Andy next to a night club. One night she meets David Blakely, and they start a love affair. However, for David with his upper-class background, it is impossible to uphold the relationship. He breaks up with her, something which makes Ellis, obsessed by him, very upset.

Spain, 1809.
The newly promoted Captain Sharpe will be stripped of his rank unless he can save the honour of the regiment by capturing a French Imperial standard: an eagle.

Portugal, 1809.
Fast moving, hard-hitting action adventure filmed on location in the Crimea, Portugal and England brings to the screen all the danger, romance and sheer spectacle of one of the bloodiest periods in English warfare. Richard Sharpe rises through the ranks of Wellington’s army by his courageous and daring exploits. He and his men operate behind French lines, risking their lives to undermine Napoleon's forces.

The trilogy presents a comically fraught weekend from three different perspectives, as family and in laws gather at the decaying country home of their bedridden mother; the drink flows, and hidden enmities, intimate secrets and uncomfortable truths emerge through the veneer of jollity and civility.