Patrick Melrose's harrowing odyssey from a deeply traumatic childhood through adult substance abuse and, ultimately, toward recovery; Melrose is an aristocratic playboy who struggles to overcome the damage inflicted by an abusive father.
Cumberbatch puts in a magnificently mercurial shift in a five-part adaptation of Edward St Aubyn's chronicling of childhood trauma and the substance abuse that became its terrible corollary in adulthood.
