The problem with any biography of Richard Burton is that he is quite easily explicable. He was pursued only by the most obvious demons, conflicted only in the most comprehensible of ways and – if he was complicated at all, it was only in the simplest, most ordinary manner. The only inexplicable part is his talent, as talent always is – and even that, you feel (and are frequently assured by people who saw him on stage), is only partly captured by the screen legacy that is left.
The hour-long documentary Richard Burton: Wild Genius, part of a series of programmes marking the centenary of the actor’s birth, manages to add lustre to the well known story with a better-than-usual array of contributors. They include Burton’s daughter Kate and other family members; actors including Michael Sheen, Siân Phillips and Iwan Rheon (with Matthew Rhys doing the job of reading from Burton’s diaries), who can testify not only to the talent but to his particular place in Welsh culture; and people who knew and acted with him, in his heyday and beyond.
