If there ever was a couple that would be shortlisted for 'The Most Implosive Couple' title, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton would have made the grade. Drugs, alcohol, tumultous passion and anything else that can be irrevocably destructive - not to mention make a very compelling TV drama. Which is exactly what has been done, with Helena Bonham Carter and Dominic West taking to the screen as the infamous couple for the BBC Four drama which aired last night.
The show, entitled Burton and Taylor, follows the glamorous but ill-fated duo later in life - 1989 to be precise - as they work together on stage in a revival of the Noel Coward play Private Lives. In keeping with their larger-than-life personas, the play was plagued by a fit of problems that ran from sicknesss, audience backlash and of course relationship turmoil (though the actors were no longer together at the time).
Faring well at the hands of the critics for the most part, the drama uses its star potential, not only of the characters but the cast, to the upmost. With 1.16 million viewers, the public clearly agreed. Helena Bonham Carter depicts the humour smothered in grandiosity that Taylor so distinctly displayed. Taylor's motto 'Big girls need big diamonds', and statements such as 'I am a very committed wife. And I should be committed too - for being married so many times' give an idea of what the star was like, and it is this self deprecating vivacity that Bonham Carter whips out for the camera so readily - or so it seems. Dominic West carries as much style and British eccentricity (usually consgined to Bonham Carter) as possible to the role without overly glamourising the edges of the character when it comes to alcoholism and various health problems. The drama is glamour in one sense, but with far more bite than you usually see teamed alongside it.
At only ninety minutes, it is, as many are lauding it, a suitable grand finale for not only the terrible twosome but for BBC Four's biopic dramas. Neither figures are easy to inhabit like Bonham Carter and West do, seeing as they are remembered from the not-so-distant past and film history. If you want to see Bonham Carter in a refreshing role, far from her real (Tim) Burton's side and yet still are dressed up as a glamorous eccentric, then get to watching the already-aired show now. Both actors have the flare for the exaggerated drama Burton and Taylor require, but it is in their more restrained moments that they really harness the unresolved and doomed love of one of Hollywood's most famous couples, and leave the audience anxiously waiting for it to detonate in one final mass upheaval.
