Cumberbatch’s latest role in drama comes with strings attached
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Eric is a dark and crazy journey into the heart of 1980s New York – and the good, bad, and ugly world of Vincent – writer Abi Morgan
Benedict Cumberbatch is back solving mysteries on the small screen – not as Sherlock Holmes but instead as a wildeyed puppeteer searching for his missing son in the new Netflix limited series Eric.
Written by Abi Morgan, the same screenwriter behind hit projects like Shame, Suffragette and The Iron Lady, Eric mixes thrilling drama with disillusions and mental health themes as one man battles his inner demons in public while trying to reunite with his lost child.
Vincent, Cumberbatch, is one of New York’s leading puppeteers and creator of the hugely popular children’s television show Good Day Sunshine.
His life unravels when his nine-year-old son goes missing on the way to school.
“Eric is a dark and crazy journey into the heart of 1980s New York – and the good, bad, and ugly world of Vincent,” Morgan told Netflix.
Struggling to cope with the loss of his son Edgar, Vincent becomes increasingly distressed and volatile.
Full of self-loathing and guilt over Edgar’s disappearance, he clings to his son’s drawings of a blue monster puppet, Eric, convinced that if he can get Eric on TV, then Edgar will come home.
As Vincent’s progressively destructive behaviour alienates his family, his work colleagues and the detectives trying to help him, it’s Eric, a delusion of necessity, who becomes his only ally in the pursuit to bring his son home.
Alongside Cumberbatch, the series also stars Gaby Hoffmann as Cassie, McKinley Belcher III as lead detective Ledroit and Ivan Howe as Edgar.
Roberta Colindrez, Jeff Hephner, Dan Fogler, Clarke Peters, Phoebe Nicholls, David Denman and Adepero Oduye will also star throughout the show’s six-episode arc.
“When Abi first pitched
Eric to us, it gave us goose bumps,” said producers Jane Featherstone and Lucy Dyke.
“It’s an extraordinary piece of writing, inspired by Abi’s experience of New York in the mid-1980s, a city rotten to its core but on the cusp of change.”
Ready to see who’s really pulling the puppet strings? Eric premieres on May 30, 2024, only on Netflix.