Billy Liar (Penguin Decades)

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Made in 1963, Billy Liar explores this ecstasy. Little known outside the UK, this film conveys messages both timeless and very much rooted in a particular phenomenon. In the 1960s, Britain was irrevocably changing, socially and morally. This film comments on these changes, with a theological dimension not intended by the film-makers but pertinent for the Christian viewer. Waterhouse had something of a turbulent childhood and eventful youth himself. He was born and brought up in an impoverished neighbourhood in Leeds and being not so economically privileged meant that he also had to suffer some of the same mediocrity that Billy In contrast, the New World is exciting, fresh, and uninhibited by the past. Returning to Adrian Hastings: Waterhouse had something of a turbulent childhood and eventful youth himself. He was born and brought up in an impoverished neighbourhood in Leeds and being not so economically privileged meant that he also had to suffer some of the same mediocrity that Billy Fisher sees around him everyday. Unlike Waterhouse, though, who eventually worked his way up the ranks and became a strident and popular journalist in Fleet Street and then a respected writer too, Fisher's escape feels too remote to be ever a reality. He is raring to flee to London where he, as he hopes, will find his footing as a writer for a stand-up comic and yet that ambition is never realised because he is still caught up, not on his lies but also inexorably to his humdrum home town itself.

His humor is exhilarating, even when it is dark – maybe especially then – as exemplified by what he wants to put on his tombstone – ‘here lies Billy Fisher’ – in recognition of the lies he cannot help himself from spitting out repeatedly – these range from the serious, maintaining he has a job with the famous comedian Billy Boone and he is going to London, to the futile, pretending he has a dog, sister, even presenting The Witch aka Barbara, one of his three girlfriends, to the mother of his best friend and infuriating her by saying this is his sibling and the woman retorts that she knows Barbara and this lie is insulting. One of the film’s deliberate themes is frustration (inextricably linked with its setting). While the primary manifestations of this are obvious, the director subtly invites us to speculate further; e.g. on the unspoken effect of the death of Billy’s sister, or his father’s thwarted attempt to join the army. This is not, therefore, the story of a boy pursuing his dreams. Approaching Billy Liar with this expectation will lead to disappointment and a failure to appreciate the dilemma it explores (see Peter Bradshaw’s dismissive review in The Guardian). The music video for the song " The Importance of Being Idle" by Oasis contains scenes based on scenes from Billy Liar, although most of it is based on the video for the Kinks' Dead End Street.

For all his personality issues, Billy is likeable (if endlessly frustrating) and very realistic; indeed, I found some disturbing echoes of my own youth when reading the novel. Waterhouse is also impeccable in his astute rendering of both the local characters and dialect, and the difficult social transition that regional England was going through at the time. There are some great comedy lines too – I have no doubt the Monty Python team took inspiration from this novel for some of their sketches, especially the Four Yorkshiremen sketch He isn’t Billy Liar at all, he is a young man living with a mental illness. In the 50s it was an illness with no cure, and the primitive treatment there was tended to make matters worse. If you were poor, you had to sink or swim.

In the novel, the philosophy of Stradhoughton's stoic survivors is summed up by a pub singer: "Now I think that life is merry, / And I think that life is fun, / A short life and a happy one, / Is my rule number one, / I laugh when it is raining, / I laugh when it is fine, / You may think that I am foolish, / But laughter is my line …" Billy Liar' became an instant hit following its first publication in 1959 and has been adapted into a play, a musical, a TV series and even a film. Grouped with the Angry Young Men of British letters, who came to prominence in the late 50s and early 60s, Waterhouse's most famous creation is less angry with the status quo of post-war Britain than Arthur Seaton and Jimmy Porter, instead finding an escape from his frustrations by living in a dream world half of the time. But what does it matter? On the one hand, the book’s out of print and no-one seems to be reading it anymore. But it does mean something: we need to rediscover Billy as a landmark – not in social politics – but in our understanding of mental health. The comedy of Billy Liar is the odd comedy of OCD.the Poulson and Birmingham Corruption Trials were dominating the news at the time); there is also a dig at the Birminham One-Way Traffic system, when a marching band supposed to provide the high point to a procession is forced to detour round the town centre so that nobody sees it!

He got as far as just outside Birmingham, got a high-rise flat, a dull wife he can't speak to, a drunken mistress he can't get rid of ( 'my Helen problem') and a less than exciting job at the local council. So, where do we draw the line? When does a “little white lie” as a way of life become a treatable diagnosis? And, would we be lying if we said it may be too late to care?A major battleground for these tensions is Billy’s imagination, much of it centered on his fantastical country of “Ambrosia.” This word means the food or drink of the gods, which in Greek mythology confers immortality upon whomever consumes it. In the film, “Ambrosia” is effectively where Billy’s heart is, where his dreams run wild, and his ambitions are unfettered. He frequently escapes his dreary home, strict parents, and boring job to an imagined land where he is king, soldier, dictator, celebrated author, and spectacular lover all in one. But Billy doesn’t change: he remains destructively irresponsible, with a childlike immaturity that seems incapable of recognising the inescapable consequences of his actions. In the real world, liars get caught out; thieves get caught; two-timers get dumped. Far from growth, all we see is moral and psychological stagnation. He’s a disaster waiting to happen: he’ll end up in jail or in a psych ward.

Billie Liar by Keith Waterhouse provided the latest foray into the world and mores of the late fifties. It’s yet another novel that resides firmly in northern English working class life. But unlike Alan Sillitoe, John Braine or Stan Bairstow, Billy Liar lives almost entirely in the comic. Until, that is, when it doesn’t.Later whilst scouring the film catalogue at film school I discovered the classic 1963 film directed by John Schlesinger and starring Tom Courtenay as Billy Fisher. A film which took the grim up north stereotypes that had become the norm in British New Wave cinema and turned them on their head with comedy and the careful use of surrealism. His habitual embroidery of the truth, has left him tangled in a web of pointless lies. He has told: He doesn't feel grown up either, more like a 'juvenile lead.' All of which means he still finds occasion to tell lies, only its not so acceptable at 33 as it was at 17. Nor is it as charming in the dreay 1970's as it was in the innocent late 1950's. If you're in any more trouble, Billy, it's not something you can leave behind you, you know. You put it in your suitcase, and you take it with you." The semi-comical story is about William Fisher, a working-class 19-year-old living with his parents in the fictional town of Stradhoughton in Yorkshire. Bored by his job as a lowly clerk for an undertaker, Billy spends his time indulging in fantasies and dreams of life in the big city as a comedy writer.