Helena Bonham Carter dazzles as fellow Barnet-born actress Elizabeth Taylor

Helena Bonham Carter and Elizabeth Taylor grew up just streets apart, albeit a few decades apart.

So it was fitting that one should play the other in a BBC television drama broadcast this week.

On Monday, Burton and Taylor – a biopic exploring the tempestuous relationship between twice-married Hollywood stars Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor – aired on BBC Four.

Ms Bonham Carter turned in a stunning performance as Ms Taylor, who was born at 8 Wildwood Road in Hampstead Garden Suburb in 1932 and passed away in Los Angeles, USA, in 2011.

As a child, the late Oscar winner walked the same streets as Ms Bonham Carter, who grew up in Golders Green and attended South Hampstead High School.

Now 47, Ms Bonham Carter is around the same age as Ms Taylor was during the period in which the biopic is set, in 1983.

But the same cannot be said for Ms Bonham Carter’s co-star Dominic West, who has been accused of not looking old enough in his role as legendary Welsh actor Richard Burton.

Burton died suddenly from a brain haemorrhage, aged 58, in 1984 – just a year after Burton and Taylor is set – following years of alcohol addiction.

Burton and Taylor is available to watch on BBC iPlayer until August 2.