Patrick Melrose - TV Mini-Series (2 DVDs)

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Benedict Cumberbatch is Patrick Melrose, a witty, well-bred twentysomething who's partial to pretty much every narcotic imaginable. When news of his father's death breaks, who knows if it's the heroin or their terrible relationship that causes him to react with such indifference. Patrick must dutifully collect his father's remains from New York, where, he confidently declares, he will get clean. But getting sober in the Big Apple is less a piece of cake, more a rancid slice of cold turkey and he's soon hitting the city's seedier back streets to score a fix of anything and everything on offer. This outstanding series chapters the life of the troubled Melrose, from his abusive childhood in the South of France to his drug-addled adulthood in New York and London, in a tale that's sometimes dark but always bejewelled with a sparkling wit.