During the build-up to D-Day in 1944, the British found their island hosting many thousands of American soldiers who were “oversexed, overpaid, and over here”. That’s Charlie Madison exactly; he knows all the angles to make life as smooth and risk-free as possible for himself. But things become complicated when he falls for an English woman, and his commanding officer’s nervous breakdown leads to Charlie being sent on a senseless and dangerous mission.

Humbert Humbert is a middle-aged British novelist who is both appalled by and attracted to the vulgarity of American culture. When he comes to stay at the boarding house run by Charlotte Haze, he soon becomes obsessed with Lolita, the woman’s teenaged daughter.