Blythe Danner Will Join Benedict Cumberbatch in Showtime Series | Playbill

Film & TV News Blythe Danner Will Join Benedict Cumberbatch in Showtime Series Oscar nominee and stage alum Cumberbatch will star in and executive produce Patrick Melrose.
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Tony and Emmy winner Blythe Danner, most recently on Broadway in 2014 in The Country House, will join the previously announced Benedict Cumberbatch in Patrick Melrose, a five-part limited series for Showtime.

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Benedict Cumberbatch JStone / Shutterstock.com

The cast, according to Deadline, will also include Jennifer Jason Leigh, Hugo Weaving, Anna Madeley, and Allison Williams.

Patrick Melrose, starring and executive-produced by Oscar nominee and Emmy winner Cumberbatch (who also recently played the title role in Hamlet on the London stage), is written by BAFTA Award nominee David Nicholls (Far From the Madding Crowd, One Day). Based on the series of semi-autobiographical novels written by Edward St. Aubyn, the TV program skewers the upper class as it tracks the protagonist’s odyssey from a traumatic childhood through adult substance abuse and, ultimately, recovery.

A co-production between Showtime and Sky Atlantic, the limited series begins shooting in London and the South of France this month. A broadcast date has yet to be announced.

Cumberbatch will play Melrose, an aristocratic playboy who struggles to overcome the damage inflicted by an abusive father and the mother who tacitly condoned the behavior. Weaving and Leigh will play Melrose's parents with Danner—a Tony winner for her performance in Butterflies Are Free—as the wealthy sister of Eleanor Melrose (Leigh).

Michael Jackson and Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning producer Rachael Horovitz (Moneyball, Grey Gardens) also serve as executive producers. Jackson, the former Channel Four and IAC executive, recently formed the drama banner Two Cities Television; Patrick Melrose is the company’s first production. Along with Cumberbatch, Adam Ackland will executive produce for SunnyMarch.

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