Sorry about Charlie East's ability to charm (7)
I believe the answer is:
sorcery
'charm' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'sorry about charlie east's' is the wordplay.
'about' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'charlie' becomes 'C' (phonetic alphabet: alpha, bravo, charlie etc.).
'east' becomes 'e' (abbreviation).
'c'+'e'='ce'
'sorry' enclosing 'ce' is 'SORCERY'.
'ability to' is the link.
I am not very happy about this link. Some or all of it may belong to another bit of the clue.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for sorcery that I've seen before include "practice being aligned with the devil?" , "spells etc?" , "Necromancy" , "occultism" , "Use of magic" .)