Billy Liar

Published Thursday 9 February 2006 at 16:00 by Carole Baldock

You just know the net curtains will be twitching about Billy’s shenanigans in this realistic row of semi-detached houses, which open up into the well-conceived interior of the Fisher household, curiously set in the middle of rows of terraced houses.

Any parent knows the exasperation having to deal with a son who persists in pointless fibbing and living in a fantasy world. But since long-suffering Alice is also smothering and Geoffrey a blustering bully (Kerry Peers and David Hounslow, both excellent), and what kind of a life is it anyway, working for an undertaker, no wonder Billy is nothing but a dreamer.

Just as the expression ‘Billy Liar’ has become common use, his lies take on a life of their own, and stuck in the tangled web he’s woven, he struggles, valiantly and comically, with women - the adventurous Liz, plus a pair of fiances, though Barbara (Victoria Gee), in hilarious contrast to the fiercely chav-like Rita, is such a fearsome frump any chance of poignance is lost.

Billy really does need to get out of that place but somebody who repeatedly cries wolf wastes time and energy in sheepish retraction, or trying to cover up with even bigger lies. However, played with charm and ebullience by Michael Imerson, you sincerely wish him well, that not only will he escape to London but there will find those mythical streets paved with gold.

Oh yes, jolly good fun this production - no word of a lie.