Patrick Melrose (2018 Edward Berger)

Comes on like 'Fear and Loathing' with a dark heart as junkie Benedict Cumberbatch (on simply amazing form) goes to NY to collect his hated father's ashes, providing us with the best Quaalude moment since Wolf of Wall Street as he crawls along the walls.

David Nicholls' adaptation of Edward St. Aubyn's books then takes us back from 1982 to 1967 and the awful event of his childhood (sensibly reversing the order of the books).... then on into the future. The novels on which the series is based are - unfortunately for the author - autobiographical. Both Nicholls and Cumberbatch were huge fans. It's acerbically funny and gut-wrenching, though ends on hope. Really good.

All cast very good. Jennifer Jason Leigh, Hugo Weaving, Sebastian Maltz (young Patrick), Jessica Raine, Pip Torrens, Holliday Grainger, Prasanna Puwanarajah, Anna Madeley, Indira Varma (sympathetic lady at dinner), James Fleet, John Standing, Blythe Danner, Gary Beadle (Chilly Willy), Celia Imrie, Elizabeth Berrington, Harriet Walter, Jonjo O'Neill (The Ballad of Buster Scruggs).

Produced by Sky / Showtime. Photographed by James Friend, edited by Tim Murrell (Parade's End - funnily enough - and Any Human Heart), Luke Dunkley and Dan Roberts.