70th Anniversary Play Season: Billy Liar
Part of a season of seven plays to celebrate 70 years of the Pomegranate Theatre as a civic theatre.
Billy Fisher is a northern lad, 19 years old, living at home with his mum and dad and doing a job he hates at a funeral parlour. He has a best mate, Arthur Crabtree, and two fiancées, but his heart belongs to another girl. He’s frustrated with his home town and with his parent’s way of living. He longs to escape to the big city to become a writer.
Billy is a compulsive liar. He lies about absolutely everything and dodges the drudgery of everyday life by diving into his imagination. But sooner or later Billy’s lies will catch up with him and there will be consequences.
Billy Liar is a hilarious and sometimes painfully truthful insight into 1960s northern family life. It was adapted into a hugely influential film in 1963 starring Tom Courtenay and Julie Christie, which was part of the “Angry Young Men” movement in British culture in the 1960s.
Approx. running time: 2 hours 30 mins (subject to change)
★★★★ “teenage dreamer is as witty as ever” Guardian
★★★★ “funny and absorbing” The Telegraph
After the show on Thursday, join the cast in the bar for a game in the style of Would I Lie to You.
