Billy Liar
by Keith Waterhouse
My rating: 3 out of 5 stars
This popular 1959 novel was adapted into a successful three act West End play starring Albert Finney, which enjoyed enough success to then tour globally. The acclaimed 1963 film starred Tom Courtenay and Julie Christie, featuring the marvellous veteran Mona Washbourne, legendary comic Wilfred Pickles and an early big screen appearance by funny man Leonard Rossiter, who would later become a household name in TV's hilarious Rising Damp. A 1973 London Weekend Television series followed, before a blockbuster West End musical at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. The latter (1974) ran for 904 performance and starred Michael Crawford, featuring a practically unheard-of Elaine Paige.
Poor naïve young Billy's a bit of a lad but a good, honest one, learning keenly and clumsily about the opposite sex and forever daydreaming of his own personal fantasy world not so that unlike his real one, neither place being all that flash.
His daydreams are attempts at escaping the tedium and isolation of his very ordinary work and home life. His girlfriends are difficult, foreign creatures. His workmates and bosses can be scoundrels. His comical family is ever-present but seldom really there for him.
This amusing journey is a snapshot in time. Nothing magnificent, fancy or complex, just an honest, straight forward read, maybe for those in need of a simplistic diversion from heavier stuff.
It somehow dug itself a special place in my literary memories. And that's saying something for such a light-hearted read.
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