Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor were monuments going badly to seed by the time they appeared on stage together in Noel Coward’s Private Lives in 1983. Burton died less than a year after the play’s run ended. Taylor was heavily overweight, drinking too much and taking too many pills. This is the period in the two stars’ lives that the BBC’s new biopic covers. It’s a fascinating but very flawed affair.

TV pick of the week: Burton and Taylor

Actress Anna Chancellor, who starred in axed BBC drama The Hour, has spoken of her hopes that the period drama could return for a one-off special.

The Village star John Simm has admitted that he is fed up with the attention he gets from Doctor Who fans.

Pianist Lucy Parham is practiced at presenting composers’ lives in words and music with the aid of actors, and Debussy is her latest. Not such an easy nut to crack as Schumann – no equivalent of the Robert-and-Clara household diaries – but as a letter-writer Debussy held forth with an engaging blend of pride and prejudice, hedonism and misanthropy.

Lyrical and sublime, Butterworth’s triumph is the hottest ticket in town

There was a time when people on buses and Tubes didn't just fiddle with their phones. There was a time when what they stared at were the pages of a newspaper, or book. Some people still do, of course, but many, many don't. Many just fiddle and tap and flick and glance at one thing, and then another thing, and then at something else.

Holy Tharks, no wonder Disney lost a packet on this, a po-faced action-adventure that doesn't even have the decency to be Flash Gordon camp.

A gritty drama about serial killer Fred West won three television Baftas last night.

Rebecca Hall's author, Florence, is a supernatural sceptic who debunks supposedly ghostly happenings in 1921 Britain.

Appropriate Adults Dominic West and Emily Watson have each carried off a Royal Television Society award for their performances in the drama about the killer Fred West.

The television is back. Five years ago, in a fit of anti-capitalist pique, I unplugged this instrument of Beezlebub. I decided that I didn't want all its horrors flooding into the family home. I didn't want The X-Factor, CBeebies, Dick and Dom, the Ten O'Clock News or the dreary gloom of EastEnders. Mr Murdoch and his evil ways could stay out of my house for ever. Like Plato, I decided to banish the playwrights and their portrayal of negative character traits from my ideal Republic. My children would grow up unsullied by the false promises of consumerism. Instead, they'd learn useful skills, carpentry and violin.

Lavish period pieces, rampaging killer arachnids, indie gems and barmy sci-fi: the best TV and film DVDs of the year