MR BURTON

It's 1942 in Port Talbot, and Philip Burton (Toby Jones) is a teacher who lives on his own, frustrated that the War interfered in his aspirations to make a career in the theatre, as a playwright, or director.

One of his pupils, Richard Jenkins, a miner's son (played by Harry Lawtey), shares something of Mr Burton's passion for the stage, and he has some raw talent.  So Mr Burton takes him under his wing, helps him develop that talent, and uses his contacts to open up a remarkable opportunity for him to go to Oxford University.

The only snag is that for him to take up that opportunity he'll need to become Mr Burton's adopted son.  Well, that happens and so Richard Jenkins becomes Richard Burton (yes, that Richard Burton).

Everything seems to be going swimmingly well except that out of the blue young Mr Burton gets the idea that maybe old Mr Burton's motives might not be what they seem - after all he does live alone. When he gets drunk and angrily expresses his suspicions this causes a major rift in their relationship.

Fast forward eight years and Richard is rehearsing for a major production of Henry IV at Stratford-upon-Avon, and the rehearsals are not going well, partly down to Richard's heavy drinking.

Cue Philip to come to the rescue, and so we get a happy ending in which Richard gives a triumphant performance.

I'm sceptical that this rather contrived ending actually happened.  I'm naturally sceptical when it comes to anything based on a true story, and in this case my suspicions only got bigger after I checked out Philip's life history on Wikipedia.

Turns out he was only some twenty years older than Richard, was indeed gay, and after the War developed a highly successful career as a radio producer and theatre director, leading him to move to America and become a US citizen.  None of this lines up with the portrayal here by Toby Jones who is over 40 years older than Richard Jenkins was in 1942.

Given that Toby Jones struggles throughout with the Welsh accent, he's not an obvious choice to play Philip Burton, other than for commercial reasons of course.

It's a well-made and well acted film which inevitably suffers however from being very predictable.  But it certainly delivers what most of its audience will expect.

RATING: x Curb Your Enthusiasm