The Bounder

- Season 1

(1982)

Plausible fraudster Howard Booth is released from a two year prison sentence and,feigning a limp, calls on gullible sister Mary,who is married to estate agent Trevor Mountjoy. Mary is keen for Howard to stay but Trevor will only consent - and then reluctantly - if Howard pretends he has spent the last two years in Zimbabwe. Howard falls for Laura,a widow from next door,but dares not tell her that he is responsible for her losing her savings. He does however suddenly get the full use of his leg back,apparently through acupuncture.

On Mary and Trevor's wedding anniversary Howard plans to give them a night at the Majestic hotel - for free. He starts by gate-crashing a rugby club private party to steal drinks and then poses as a high-up from hotel management and a waiter in order to appropriate their food. Unfortunately when he steals the rugby club's salmon and waltzes off to dance with Mary Trevor pays the price with his trousers.

Howard is trying to write a romantic novel but Mary and Trevor are unimpressed. Learning that Laura from next door is a very wealthy widow Howard proposes to her and is turned down. He then passes himself off as Quincey Brown,the famous crime novelist but is rumbled when the picture on the dust jacket of Quincey's book shows that she was a woman who died a decade earlier. And Howard's claim to have written a poem by Byron also exposes him as a fraud.

In order to get money to impress Laura Howard tells bank manager Scrimshaw that ,if he advances him a thousand pounds,he will cut him in on ownership of a diamond mine he discovered in Africa. Howard uses Laura's house,claiming it as his own,to show Scrimshaw phoney diamonds and a pretend map but they are interrupted by the window cleaners and then by Mary,who throws the map on the fire and causes the 'diamonds' to melt into nothing.

In his continuing attempts to woo Laura Howard buys an expensive bracelet on approval,hoping that she will be charmed by the gesture but refuse to take it. However she accepts. With the jewellers wanting the bracelet's return next day Howard ropes Trevor into a burglary which fails and ultimately,in order to get the bracelet back,must resort to insults - which rather defeats the object.

Howard and Trevor are shopping in a department store when they see 'Greasy',Howard's old cell-mate, shop-lifting. Trvor agrees not to tell anybody if Greasy returns the items but Greasy puts them in Trevor's bag and Trevor gets arrested by the store detective. Howard has to impersonate a police officer claiming that Trevor is a very important person framed by Greasy in order to secure an escape for all concerned.

When Laura starts dating handsome Italian Count Monefiore Howard gets jealous and sets out to expose him as a fraud,a ploy which goes disastrously wrong in an Italian restaurant. He persuades Trevor to employ a private investigator but unfortunately he investigates Howard by mistake and reveals to Laura that he was the fraudster who swindled her out of her money.