First look: Dominic West and Helena Bonham Carter as iconic couple Richard Burton and Liz Taylor

Dominic West and Helena Bonham Carter as Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor (BBC)

Dominic West and Helena Bonham Carter are to appear as one of Hollywood's most tempestuous couples - Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.

The Hour actor West and The King's Speech actress Bonham Carter will play the legendary screen stars in a one-off 90-minute BBC drama.

Burton And Taylor will follow the couple's private and public relationship, played out against the backdrop of their ill-fated appearance in a 1983 revival of Noel Coward's stage play, Private Lives.

The show will be broadcast on BBC4, which has scored several hits with biopic films.

Taylor and Burton's relationship began when they worked on the big-budget movie Cleopatra and the couple married in 1964.

Their first 10-year marriage ended in divorce in 1974 but they tied the knot once more the following year in a remote Botswana village.

Their reunion lasted just five months.

Burton and Taylor were one of the most celebrated couples, starring together in several films, including The Taming Of The Shrew and Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?.

Burton died aged 58 in 1984, a year after the production of Private Lives, and Taylor, who was famous for her violet-coloured eyes, died in 2011 at the age of 79.

PA