Patrick Melrose. (18.)
Directed by Edward Berger.
Starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Hugo Weaving, Anne Madeley, Pip Torrens, Indira Varma, Jessica Raine, Prasanna Puwanarajah, Celia Imrie, James Fleet, Holliday Grainger, Sebastian Maltz, Blythe Danner and Harriet Walter. 290 mins. Out on DVD from Acorn Media.
Of all the 21st century's many crimes I suppose the stratification of TV watching is a minor one, but it follows the principles of the major ones. Telly used to be a communal practice, something we all did together, a shared experience. Now it has become aspirational and competitive and materialistic: where style gurus and influencers once spoke of Must Have accessories, now they extoll the Must See boxsets. You don't have to enjoy it, but you need to be seen to be seeing it. True, most of these can be downloaded for free off of that there internet, but the edge of competition remains. Being a couch potato used to be shameful; now binge watching is culturally acceptable.
The evil tyrant Rupert Murdoch was of course at the forefront of this – he's never hesitated from severing any societal bonds that might come between him and his money. Patrick Melrose is a TV series from his Sky TV, which occupies an ambiguous position in the modern TV landscape. It is elitist and superior as hell: la di da actor Benedict Cumberbatch playing the title character in an adaptation of not one but all five novels in a semi-autobiographical sequence written by la di da ex-junkie, ex-alchie, ex-aristo author Edward St Aubyn. It has the air of quality to make it a product that one would play extra for, but it is also a throwback to earlier, simpler, more inclusive times.
St Aubyn's novels chart Patrick Melrose's life growing up as the abused, emotionally and sexually, child of an English gentleman (Wearing) and his American heiress wife (Leigh), flipping from one addiction to the next. Haven't read them, but on the evidence of this, I'd say that the appeal would be the tension between style and content. It is a waspish, cynical but insular look at the British upper classes: ghastly rich people bitching about all even ghastlier rich people. At the same it bristles with the indignity that its shares many narratives strands with that most common of genres, Misery Lit. It's A Boy Called "It" turned into A Dance To The Music Of Time.
It is a quality artefact that breaks the boxset mould in a number of ways. On a practical level, it is too short, just five episodes and with presumably no chance of more. (Though you never know.) Plus it isn't really suitable for binge watching. Each hour-long episode drops such a weight onto your lap you aren't likely to feel like skipping onto another one straight away. This is not easily consumed drama.
Mostly though it is mould-breaking in the ways it is a reminder of TV past. In the old 4/5 channel terrestrial age, the TV was full of adaptations of very high brow novels. These would have great casts, top quality production values, they would often take place over a number of years or decades and win BAFTAs even if they killed the material stone dead. Patrick Melrose brings to mind these kinds of drama, almost all of them.
Each episode adapts one novel, and each novel is centred around a single event or day in Melrose's life, so each episode has its own distinct character. The first episode, Bad News, in which a trip to New York to collect his hated father's ashes becomes a pre-quitting drug binge is curiously reminiscent of the BBC's diabolical attempt to do a screen version of Money by Martin Amis. Within each one I could pick out traces of so many TV dramas of the past, everything from Brideshead Revisited to the Buddha of Suburbia.
The decision to re-order the sequence and start with second book Bad News means that the series has a big brash showy comic start. An upper-class fear and self-loathing in New York, with Patrick as our Hunter S. Trumpton. His life is a living hell, an itchy can't stand his own skin purgatory of addiction and bad behaviour but still preferable to your humdrum existence. Melrose is so rich he can afford the worst of everything.
Bad News is an effective attention grabber, but it is after that the adaptation really becomes something mighty. Cumberbatch barely appears in second episode, Never Mind, where we go back to the late 60s and a trip to the family villa in the South of France, with Sebastian Maltz playing the young Melrose, and discover the full horror of his father David. Possibly Some Hope, the third one with the dinner party with Princess Margaret is where you begin to appreciate just how rich an adaptation this is. David Nichols (One Day, Starter For Ten) has done a superb job of adapting them. It covers much the same territory as all the literary adaptation from the terrestrial TV age, but there is an extra edge to it. Writers and adapters are much smarter now about picking what they should keep and what they should discard. As a non-reader, you sense that this is doing far more than skimming across the pages, that it is communicating almost indecent amounts of the books' qualities.
Cumberbatch, what do you make of him? I mean, he's consummate, obviously. Can't be faulted, without ever wholly escaping the feeling that he wouldn't be able to carry off that face if he wasn't so posh. Maybe he's too controlled here. The emotional flow doesn't seem forced and the acid delivery is perfect. But even when he's manic drunk, or crawling across the walls out of it or desperately trying to find a vein to inject into, this is never a soul who seems genuinely lost, or even really phased.
The acting is really, really splendid, and almost all the cast excell because almost all the cast have been handed over juicy roles. Yes, we can note Madeley fine supporting work as his wife, but it is the monster roles you remember: Pip Torrens as his father's best friend or Harriet Walter as a ghastly chain smoking Princess Margaret. Most of all there is Hugo Weaving as the father. I can't say if he captured exactly the essence of the character on the page, but he's definitely captured something. David Melrose could've been Prime Minister but is from a background where could've been is better than being because it is unseemly to be making an effort; superiority must be effortless, or it is not superiority. Weaving's achievement is not to make him so thoroughly repellent that when his abuse of the young Melrose is revealed it doesn't really make him seen any worse, but to show how he could glide through society without ever being challenged.
Directed by Edward Berger.
Starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Hugo Weaving, Anne Madeley, Pip Torrens, Indira Varma, Jessica Raine, Prasanna Puwanarajah, Celia Imrie, James Fleet, Holliday Grainger, Sebastian Maltz, Blythe Danner and Harriet Walter. 290 mins. Out on DVD from Acorn Media.
Of all the 21st century's many crimes I suppose the stratification of TV watching is a minor one, but it follows the principles of the major ones. Telly used to be a communal practice, something we all did together, a shared experience. Now it has become aspirational and competitive and materialistic: where style gurus and influencers once spoke of Must Have accessories, now they extoll the Must See boxsets. You don't have to enjoy it, but you need to be seen to be seeing it. True, most of these can be downloaded for free off of that there internet, but the edge of competition remains. Being a couch potato used to be shameful; now binge watching is culturally acceptable.
The evil tyrant Rupert Murdoch was of course at the forefront of this – he's never hesitated from severing any societal bonds that might come between him and his money. Patrick Melrose is a TV series from his Sky TV, which occupies an ambiguous position in the modern TV landscape. It is elitist and superior as hell: la di da actor Benedict Cumberbatch playing the title character in an adaptation of not one but all five novels in a semi-autobiographical sequence written by la di da ex-junkie, ex-alchie, ex-aristo author Edward St Aubyn. It has the air of quality to make it a product that one would play extra for, but it is also a throwback to earlier, simpler, more inclusive times.
St Aubyn's novels chart Patrick Melrose's life growing up as the abused, emotionally and sexually, child of an English gentleman (Wearing) and his American heiress wife (Leigh), flipping from one addiction to the next. Haven't read them, but on the evidence of this, I'd say that the appeal would be the tension between style and content. It is a waspish, cynical but insular look at the British upper classes: ghastly rich people bitching about all even ghastlier rich people. At the same it bristles with the indignity that its shares many narratives strands with that most common of genres, Misery Lit. It's A Boy Called "It" turned into A Dance To The Music Of Time.
It is a quality artefact that breaks the boxset mould in a number of ways. On a practical level, it is too short, just five episodes and with presumably no chance of more. (Though you never know.) Plus it isn't really suitable for binge watching. Each hour-long episode drops such a weight onto your lap you aren't likely to feel like skipping onto another one straight away. This is not easily consumed drama.
Mostly though it is mould-breaking in the ways it is a reminder of TV past. In the old 4/5 channel terrestrial age, the TV was full of adaptations of very high brow novels. These would have great casts, top quality production values, they would often take place over a number of years or decades and win BAFTAs even if they killed the material stone dead. Patrick Melrose brings to mind these kinds of drama, almost all of them.
Each episode adapts one novel, and each novel is centred around a single event or day in Melrose's life, so each episode has its own distinct character. The first episode, Bad News, in which a trip to New York to collect his hated father's ashes becomes a pre-quitting drug binge is curiously reminiscent of the BBC's diabolical attempt to do a screen version of Money by Martin Amis. Within each one I could pick out traces of so many TV dramas of the past, everything from Brideshead Revisited to the Buddha of Suburbia.
The decision to re-order the sequence and start with second book Bad News means that the series has a big brash showy comic start. An upper-class fear and self-loathing in New York, with Patrick as our Hunter S. Trumpton. His life is a living hell, an itchy can't stand his own skin purgatory of addiction and bad behaviour but still preferable to your humdrum existence. Melrose is so rich he can afford the worst of everything.
Bad News is an effective attention grabber, but it is after that the adaptation really becomes something mighty. Cumberbatch barely appears in second episode, Never Mind, where we go back to the late 60s and a trip to the family villa in the South of France, with Sebastian Maltz playing the young Melrose, and discover the full horror of his father David. Possibly Some Hope, the third one with the dinner party with Princess Margaret is where you begin to appreciate just how rich an adaptation this is. David Nichols (One Day, Starter For Ten) has done a superb job of adapting them. It covers much the same territory as all the literary adaptation from the terrestrial TV age, but there is an extra edge to it. Writers and adapters are much smarter now about picking what they should keep and what they should discard. As a non-reader, you sense that this is doing far more than skimming across the pages, that it is communicating almost indecent amounts of the books' qualities.
Cumberbatch, what do you make of him? I mean, he's consummate, obviously. Can't be faulted, without ever wholly escaping the feeling that he wouldn't be able to carry off that face if he wasn't so posh. Maybe he's too controlled here. The emotional flow doesn't seem forced and the acid delivery is perfect. But even when he's manic drunk, or crawling across the walls out of it or desperately trying to find a vein to inject into, this is never a soul who seems genuinely lost, or even really phased.
The acting is really, really splendid, and almost all the cast excell because almost all the cast have been handed over juicy roles. Yes, we can note Madeley fine supporting work as his wife, but it is the monster roles you remember: Pip Torrens as his father's best friend or Harriet Walter as a ghastly chain smoking Princess Margaret. Most of all there is Hugo Weaving as the father. I can't say if he captured exactly the essence of the character on the page, but he's definitely captured something. David Melrose could've been Prime Minister but is from a background where could've been is better than being because it is unseemly to be making an effort; superiority must be effortless, or it is not superiority. Weaving's achievement is not to make him so thoroughly repellent that when his abuse of the young Melrose is revealed it doesn't really make him seen any worse, but to show how he could glide through society without ever being challenged.
