Richard Burton was a star, but this biopic doesn’t capture his charisma

MR BURTON ★★★½

(M) 124 minutes

There can be few movie stars who have made a steeper climb to fame than Richard Burton. A miner’s son from a Welsh-speaking household, he was working in a haberdashery shop for 28 shillings a week by the time he was 16 – and hating it. But never mind. Less than two years later, he was on stage in the West End.

Even in his adolescence, his talent was undeniable, but he was also graced with a lot of luck. He had mentors who recognised his talent and helped him get where he needed to go.

The most influential was teacher Philip Burton, played here by Toby Jones, who was recently seen successfully taking on a British monolith in the TV series Mr Bates vs The Post Office. After that feat, managing Richard Burton’s early career should look easy. It doesn’t – there are all sorts of complications – but Jones has no difficulty in winning you over with his portrayal of a dedicated teacher willing to do whatever it takes to further the ambitions of the most gifted student he will ever have.

He starts by spending hours helping the young Rich Jenkins (Harry Lawtey) to modify his voice and accent thoroughly enough to achieve the rounded vowels and supple, resonant baritone that would make him so memorable on stage and screen. And when an Oxford scholarship is in the offing, Burton increases his chances by signing on to become his adoptive father and giving him his surname.

It’s quite a decision, and Burton, a bachelor, is well aware of the gossip it will provoke, yet he goes ahead. It’s Rich who reacts badly to the snide cracks that eventuate when Burton rents him a room in the boarding house where he lives. It’s run by Ma Smith, played by Lesley Manville, whose fluttery performance involves so much over-acting her scenes take on the cosiness of a TV soap.

Welsh director Marc Evans’ film cleaves quite closely to the real story, although it condenses certain events and omits the role played by other teachers who influenced Burton’s rise. But that’s movie-making. It does give us a convincing re-creation of the stifling atmosphere of Burton’s birthplace, Pontrhydyfen, and the neighbouring town of Port Talbot, where he has been living with his beloved sister, Cis (Aimee-Ffion Edwards), and her husband, Elfed (Aneurin Barnard).

There’s no room for him in the Jenkins family home and Elfed, a miner, doesn’t exactly make him welcome in his house either. He’s the one who arranges for Rich to have the job in the shop, offering it up as a golden opportunity to avoid a life in the mines.

The film’s main flaw is the casting of Lawtey, who never quite gets the voice right. Nor does he exude the glamour Burton possessed by the time he was starting to make his mark as an actor. Lanky with a slouch, he’s fine in the early scenes, but once he and his mentor begin to flare up at one another over his drinking, he goes into a chronic sulk and never comes out of it.

In essence, it’s a great story, yet the final scenes, which take us out of Wales to London and Stratford, don’t quite work. Bent on underlining the wondrous nature of Burton’s arrival in the big time, Evans pumps up the soundtrack to a distracting level, maybe because he, too, has failed to be persuaded by Lawtey’s supposedly triumphant transformation from callow youth to great actor.

Mr Burton is released in cinemas on August 14.

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