Billy Liar (Penguin Decades)

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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 , Waterhouse’s second novel, catapulted him to fame and success. It became a BAFTA nominated film, directed by John Schlesinger and starring Tom Courtenay and Judy Christie. There was also a play with Albert Finney in the title role and, of course, a television series both here and in the US. When the musical opened in the West End, it starred Michael Crawford and Elaine Paige in her West End debut. But now, it is almost forgotten. How unusual is Massimine’s allergy to the truth? Dr Curtis and Dr Hart drew on research conducted in 2010 to calculate how many Americans habitually lie. It showed 60% said they told no lies in the previous 24 hours. On average, people told 1.65 lies (half-truths?) in the previous 24 hours except for 5.3% of the population who just couldn’t stop. They told an average of 15 lies a day. Out of this group, the two doctors have put together a psychological profile, a pathology they want included in the DSMMM. In terms of genre, the film is a product of its time. A rare example of “British New Wave,” (equivalent to the French Nouvelle Vague), it shares in the “kitchen sink realism” of productions that placed domestic life center stage: Grim-looking Brits spending their off-hours in grimy pubs became increasingly prominent, as did regional accents. The popular soap Coronation Street is an enduring example of this genre. The Old vs the New

Billy Liar is a short book. Joyce’s Ulysses is longer. But they both inhabit similar territory in that they follow a principal character through one day’s eventless events. Viewed in this light, Billy Liar becomes potentially much more than a comic romp through northern English quaintness.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 cross media adaptations did start not or end there though, Keith Waterhouse originally adapted it in to a stageplay which starred a young Albert Finney (who turned down the lead in David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia to play Billy!), his success in the movie adaptation of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning helping to making Billy Liar an overnight hit in the West End. The New World’s main representative in the film is Julie Christie’s character, Liz. She is carefree, spontaneous, and unrestricted by social or familial ties. Billy is easily intoxicated with her approach to life, her association with frequent travel, and especially with London. Liz represents the new spirit of 1960s Britain at its most dazzling – she has cut ties with her Northern roots, goes where she wants, and is polyamorous. She represents the elusive promises of the New World, in which one’s dreams and the freedom to pursue them are unfettered by such dreary notions as responsibility, duty, or monogamy. “Ambrosia,” the Battleground When I first saw the film in 1961 I was also intrigued by the glimpse it offered of a strange new world - the North of England!On the surface, Billy Liar is a quirky little British movie portraying a day in the life of William (Billy) Fisher: an irresponsible day-dreamer whose frequent forays into his imaginary world, “Ambrosia,” often supersede his real-life duties and commitments. Billy is a young man who lives with his parents and elderly grandmother in 1960s Yorkshire. He has returned from a selective grammar school to dreary suburbia and his decidedly working-class parents. The resulting educational gap between the generations is obvious. Billy’s day-dreaming and compulsive lying lead to various predicaments, some hilarious and others more tragic. Our protagonist fumbles his way through life without much direction, much to the consternation of those around him. I had expected Billy Liar to have aged, perhaps grown stale now that its setting would no longer be ideologically either working class or Labour voting. But has anything changed? And if so, has it been for the better? Might it be that the community in which Billy lived had convinced itself of its status and indispensability only to have come down to earth with a bump when reality intervened? As you can see there is a rather large and influential history behind this book and having finally gotten around to reading it I can see why. Despite taking place over just the one day this is still a coming of age tale, it brings us in to Billy's life as he becomes aware that he has to make changes and the events that transpire in that day are enough to help him work some things out in his mind, if not necessarily making those changes. I've seen comparisons to The Catcher in the Rye and I would definitely agree with those only Waterhouse gives us a wonderful almost python-esque comedy at the same time making for a much more enjoyable and accessible read. In contrast, the New World is exciting, fresh, and uninhibited by the past. Returning to Adrian Hastings:

Billy Fisher is a 19-year-old suffocating in a small fictional Yorkshire town and this book covers one day in his life. Billy works as an undertaker's clerk, is nagged by his mother and shouted at by his father, is engaged to two girls but is in love with a third and dreams of becoming a hit comedy writer. Feeling trapped by the monotony of his everyday life Billy frequently disappears into a world of daydreams and lies. Inevitably, Billy's compulsive lies begin to catch up with him. Things are different with Billy’s mother. Perhaps the wisest character in the film, she uniquely recognizes her son’s quandary and the necessity of his choice about the future. When life inevitably takes a tragic turn, it is she who reaches across the generational divide in the film’s most significant scene; “We don’t say much but… we need you at home, lad.” She provides the vital reminder that: I thought I was the only one who did this. The interior secondary monologue for my own amusement, since when I manage to say out loud what I think is great fun and such an amazing observation--it turns out I am as alone as the little prince on his lonely planet. Of course, like all lazy sods, what he wants to be is a scriptwriter. And this dream is, supposedly, on the verge of being fulfilled - comedian Danny Boon has written to Billy offering him a job down in London. Yeah, right. The other one's got bells on Billy!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. Instead, he lied about their safe dispatch and kept the postage money. His aspiration is to become a comedy writer in the capital, a four-hour train journey away. “Are you really going to London,” asks one of his trio of girlfriends, “or just pretending?” Billy dreams big - of becoming a famous scriptwriter, of leaving behind his drab existence and running away to London and of making it with the wonderful free spirit played by Julie Christie in the film. And, somehow, we know that none of it will happen. 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? 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

Most of all I love the brilliantly realistic description of a northern working class family of the time, and it is riddled with those wonderfully colourful expressions that punctuated my own childhood, like:-Billy Fisher, the central character, is an intelligent, creative, educated, lower middle class 19 year old who is frustrated by his surroundings and dull clerical job at a local undertakers. His response is to retreat into Ambrosia, his private fantasy world, where he is a hero. He also responds by lying, indeed he's a pathological liar. His ludicrous deceptions result in some very amusing situations, but also in the melancholy that lies at the heart of the book. Billy dreams of moving to London, to work as a comic scriptwriter, and he has received some encouragement from an established comedian. As he works out how to make his move, his past catches up with him: multiple girlfriends, exasperated parents, his Gran, tiresome colleagues and some quite serious work misdemeanours. His habitual embroidery of the truth, has left him tangled in a web of pointless lies. He has told: 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.