Eric review – Benedict Cumberbatch will win awards for

The Sherlock star is mesmerising as a grief-stricken dad whose son has gone missing – and keeps seeing a 7ft-tall Muppet. This bold, wide-ranging series aims extremely high

Eric is that rare sighting – a truly original Netflix Original. The six part series drama written by Abi Morgan (The Iron Lady, The Split) stars Benedict Cumberbatch as genius puppeteer Vincent, the creative force behind a Sesame Street-esque show called Good Day Sunshine. When his nine-year-old son Edgar (Ivan Morris Howe) goes missing on his way to school, Vincent becomes convinced that if he brings to life the new puppet Edgar had been inventing for the show, his son will come home. Enter into the proceedings a 7ft-tall Muppets-meets-Monsters Inc creation called Eric, invisible to others and voiced by Cumberbatch, who follows Vincent round as a manifestation of his hopes, fears, guilt and altogether crumbling mental health.

Cumberbatch-meets-Muppet has, understandably, been the focus of most of the publicity. But in fact, Eric the puppet is a relatively small part of Eric the show, and not the most effective part at that. Cumberbatch, as you might expect, is mesmerising as the viciously narcissistic Vincent, pretty much drunk on his own talent long before he turns to the bottle to cope with Edgar’s disappearance, and psychologically unravelling in the wake of both. His already volatile and shaky marriage to Cassie (Gaby Hoffmann, doing much with a surprisingly thin part) fractures further under the strain and his colleagues begin to desert him too. He is already mostly estranged from his wealthy parents, to the – slightly unbelievable – extent of refusing their offer of reward money for Edgar’s safe return.