Billy Liar (Penguin Decades)

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Billy aspires to get a more interesting job as a scriptwriter for comic Danny Boon ( Leslie Randall), but when Boon comes to town, he is not interested in Billy's overtures. However, Billy tells everyone that Boon is very interested in his stories and that he will be moving to London very soon. Whenever Billy experiences something unpleasant, such as his parents scolding him or his boss harassing him, he imagines himself to be somewhere else. His fantasies generally involve himself as a hero with everyone very pleased with him. However, Billy shows himself to be happier fantasizing about being a great success than actually taking a risk to make something of himself. In 1999, the British Film Institute named Billy Liar number 76 in its list of the top 100 British films. His final column appeared in May and was, like all his work, hammered out on an elderly typewriter. Entitled It's English as She Is Spoke Innit?, it was about a taskforce looking into education reform for seven to 11-year-olds. At Charles' birthday party Nan takes an extra piece of cake and lets slip it is "for Jesus". Charles says it is not Jesus, it is "just a fella." The Mirror had become Cap'n Bob's paper and he didn't mind what you put in, so long as it was about him," Waterhouse later recalled.

In 1960, the novel's author, Keith Waterhouse, co-wrote a three-act stage version with Willis Hall. The action took place on a single set combining the living-room, hallway, and porch of the Fisher household. The first production opened in the West End of London with Albert Finney in the title role. It has since been produced all over the world, and has become a favourite with amateur groups. The play was adapted for the Irish stage as Liam Liar by Hugh Leonard in 1976. [2] Taylor, B. F. (2006). The British New Wave: A Certain Tendency?. Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-0719069093.Whistle Down the Wind is a 1961 British crime drama film directed by Bryan Forbes, adapted by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall from the 1958 novel of the same name by Mary Hayley Bell. The film stars her daughter Hayley Mills, who was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best British Actress for this film. [2]

And there is enough of a cliffhanger to keep you wanting to know: will Billy go to London (and leave his troubles and his two-and-a-half fiancees behind) or will he stay to face the music? His career began at the Yorkshire Evening Post and he also wrote regularly for Punch, the Daily Mirror, and latterly for the Daily Mail. He initially joined the Mirror as a reporter in 1952, before he became a playwright and novelist; during his initial stint, he campaigned against the colour bar in post-war Britain, [2] the abuses committed in the name of the British Empire in Kenya [3] and the British government's selling of weapons to various Middle Eastern countries. [4] Subsequently, he returned as a columnist, initially in the Mirror Magazine, moving to the main newspaper on 22 June 1970, [5] on Mondays, and extending to Thursdays from 16 July 1970. Extracts from the columns were published in the books Mondays, Thursdays and Rhubarb, Rhubarb and Other Noises. 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. In that rare occasion for literary novels (at least the few I’ve read!), the characterizations all come alive for me. I thought each character brings something unique and memorable to the table, even if Billy scornfully lumps everyone but himself into one conforming category. Which isn’t inaccurate but within conformity, each person can still carve a niche. Arthur, his best buddy, has it figured out, so did the sage dinosaur Councillor Duxbury, and the free-spirited Liz, and all the wonderfully-drawn lively characters of distinct personalities. They understand Billy more than he does himself as they watch him march in circles to the beat of his own drum rather than face the music. He’ll come around, that is the hope, but until then he’s still just going round and round and round with London no nearer today than yesterday.

A British sitcom in 1973 and most improbably an American TV show starring Steve Guttenberg(!) as Billy followed, achieving nothing more than to help Keith Waterhouse accumulate wealth I'm sure.

It was perhaps his best-known work - the story of a funeral parlour worker with a humdrum life, who spends most of his time dreaming of ways to escape his drab existence in Yorkshire.After two years as a rookie reporter, he was interviewed in London by the news editor of the Daily Mirror, who turned him down for a job, but while in the building, he wangled a further audience with the features editor, who offered him freelance shifts. Almost immediately, he was sent out with instructions to find a talking dog. For example, anticipating some tragic news, Billy’s internal monologue is “I prayed: please, God, let me feel something.” But when the news is delivered, he continues internally, “I examined what I was feeling and it was nothing, nothing.” 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:-

The novel was published in 1959. Mary Bell based the three children on her own children, including Hayley Mills. [4] When he stopped in May he said that at 80 years old he felt it was time to give up working to deadlines, even though his columns remained – as always – exactly written to length and never lost their edge."Waterhouse's work brought him a Fellowship of the Royal Society of Literature and three awards for Columnist of the Year in 1970, 1973 and 1978. He was appointed a CBE in 1991. Waterhouse called the office a few days later, announcing airily that he had fulfilled his brief. "Where's the dog?" snarled the features editor. "Cardiff," answered Waterhouse. "That's no bloody good," came the reply. "The circulation drive is in the north-west. Find me a talking dog in Liverpool!" His father, who sold fruit and vegetables, died when he was four, leaving the family in the writer's own words, "ridiculously, almost unbelievably, poor".