You would think that legends like Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton deserve better treatment than kind of cheap, cranked out TV biopics, but we guess not. They aren’t superheroes…. Last fall, we saw Lindsay Lohan and That Other Guy do their thing in the roundly derided Lifetime effort “Liz & Dick.” Now the Brits are having a go at it with “Burton & Taylor,” but at least they’re bringing some classier people along for the ride.
BBC Four have rounded up Helena Bonham Carter (looking positively…normal) and Dominic West (McNulty forever) for their biopic, penned by William Ivory (“Made In Dagenham“) and directed by Richard Laxton (the upcoming “Effie Gray” with Dakota Fanning and Emma Thompson). As you might guess by the 90-minute runtime, this won’t be an expansive, decades-spanning look at the pair, but will instead zero in on Burton and Taylor’s appearance on stage together in the Broadway production of Noel Coward‘s “Private Lives” in 1983. It was a production fraught with drama behind the scenes, but it was a big success, though critics savaged it.
“Burton & Taylor” will air later this year across the pond. No word yet when it will drop in the U.S. [Bleeding Cool]
