Benedict Cumberbatch Will Star In Showtime’s Miniseries ‘Melrose’
By Jack Giroux/Feb. 28, 2017 1:30 pm EST
Below, learn more about the Benedict Cumberbatch Showtime show.
Variety reports each episode of Melrose will cover one of St. Aubyn’s books, covering a few days in the life of Patrick Melrose. One installment will show him living in the South of France during the 1960s, while another episode will have him in New York City in the 1980s. The character then spends the early 2000s in Great Britain.
Cumberbatch starts shooting the drama in August. The character he’s playing is described as “an aristocratic and outrageously funny playboy,” which sounds like the kind of role we’d like to see the very funny Cumberbatch play. The story isn’t packed with laughs from the sound of it, though. Melrose’s journey offers “a window into a world of utter decadence, amorality, greed, snobbery, and cruelty—welcome to the declining British aristocracy.”
Here’s the synopsis for the Melrose novels:
Edward St. Aubyn offers a window into a world of utter decadence, amorality, greed, snobbery, and cruelty—welcome to the declining British aristocracy.
Screenwriter David Nicholls adapted Aubyn’s four stories. Nicholls is the novelist and screenwriter behind One Day, director Thomas Vinterberg’s recent Far from the Madding Crowd adaptation, and both the novel and script for Starter for 10. I haven’t read Starter for 10, but the movie with James McAvoy, Dominic Cooper, and Rebecca Hall is absolutely delightful. See that Tom Hanks and Sam Mendes-produced film if you haven’t yet.
No premiere date is set yet for Melrose.
