Benedict Cumberbatch is taking on a new television role in an upcoming Showtime limited series, MELROSE.
The five-part limited series is written by David Nicholls and is based on the Patrick Melrose series of semi-autobiographical novels written by Edward St. Aubyn. MELROSE “hilariously skewers the upper class as it tracks the protagonist’s harrowing odyssey from a deeply traumatic childhood through adult substance abuse and, ultimately, toward recovery.” Cumberbatch will play Patrick Melrose, “an aristocratic and outrageously funny playboy who struggles to overcome the damage inflicted by a horribly abusive father and the mother who tacitly condoned the behavior.”
The series will take place in the South of France in the 1960s, New York in the 1980s and Britain in the early 2000’s. “MELROSE will devote one hour to each of the five novels, with each episode set over the course of a few intense days in the life of the protagonist.”