The BBC has released the first image of Helena Bonham Carter and Dominic West as the glamorous, yet ill-fated lovers Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, in biopic Burton & Taylor.

The actors are set to play the couple in a one-off drama commissioned by the BBC, which is set to air on BBC Four later this year.

Promisingly, Burton & Taylor has been written by William Ivory, who was behind the brilliant Made In Dagenham, and directed by Richard Laxton, who also shot the hilarious Him&Her.

The story will focus on the pair's tumultuous relationship, set against the period of 1983, when they starred together in the revival of the Noël Coward play Private Lives.

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.

(Images: BBC, Rex Features)

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First Look at the Taylor and Burton Biopic