Patrick Melrose begins with Benedict Cumberbatch as the eponymous hero hesitating beside a ringing phone. It’s 1982, the call is from New York, and the line is indistinct. Finally, the speaker gets through: Patrick’s father has died, alone, in a hotel room. Cumberbatch doubles over — it seems from pain or shock — until we realise he is searching for a recently used heroin syringe. As the conversation progresses, he combines opiate languor with slight impatience, keen to succumb to the drug flooding through his veins. “If you want to pick up the ashes… Have you got much on?” offers Nicholas in New York. Cumberbatch slumps to the floor and gazes curiously at the blood seeping through his expensive shirt sleeve. “Not at this exact