11:30am Wednesday 18th March 2009
An all-star cast of new and established talent impresses Geoff Billingsley at a new staging of the 1960s classic, Billy Liar.
The film Billy Liar made a huge impression on me as a child.
Tom Courtenay starred as Billy, of course, with the lovely Julie Christie as his genuine love interest/soul mate Liz.
So, I just had to see this Michael Lunney-directed production at Greenwich Theatre which starred Chris Hannon as dreamer Billy and Helen Fraser as his mum Alice.
Fraser played the part of Barbara in the 1963 film and now returns on stage as wife of Geoffrey; a wonderful performance here by well-known soap actor Dicken Ashworth.
The play covers just one day, a Saturday, in Billy's complex life.
His father is a bit of a bully and is constantly nagging his son to take some responsibility in his life. He works for the local undertakers ‘clerking’ as his Dad calls it.
It would appear Billy had already taken ‘responsibility’ for the postage money in the petty cash tin, anyway.
His seemingly humdrum life is confused by two fiancees and a wonderful imagination, into which he escapes frequently.
Problem is, he only has one engagement ring and when both girls - Barbara and Rita - make a claim for it, something has to give.
I felt some empathy with Billy because all three of his girls, Lauren Drummond as perpetual orange eating Barbara, Victoria Hawkins as ‘rotten’ Rita and Holly Quin-Ankrah as the mysterious Liz, are absolutely gorgeous. How could he choose? The daydream sequences were quite well done - the lights drop, showing just Billy playing out his fantasy while the other actors froze in the darkness. It was very effective and a little more imaginative than a production I saw a few years back with Ralf Little in the lead role.
There is quite a moving scene toward the end when he argues with his Dad about his life, which makes you realise this is not just all laughs. Writer Willis Hall knew exactly what he was doing but, although most would know the outcome, keeps us guessing until the end.
In the early 1970s the musical Billy! - while not breaking too many West End records - hped to make stars of Michael Crawford and a young Elaine Paige.
Likewise, this production has Chris Hannon as Billy, surely destined for bigger and better things, as well as his young female co-stars.
This is a sad and funny nostalgic look at life not that long ago, with characters we can all relate to. Peer pressure has a lot to answer for however it manifests itself, and proved to me that there's a fair bit of Billy in all of us.
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