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Dramascripts: Billy Liar
Ideal for the English classroom and the Drama Studio. The sophisticated themes and complex plots have been specifically designed to appeal to 11-16 year olds, and have a language level accessible to all pupils.
- GenresPlays
128 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 2012
55 people want to read
About the author
Willis Hall
92 books10 followersWillis Hall was an English playwright and radio and television writer who drew on his working class Leeds roots in much of his material.
His most famous creation was probably Billy Liar (1960), co-written with life-long friend and collaborator Keith Waterhouse, and based on the latter's novel. His rise to fame had come from his play about British soldiers in the Malayan jungle The Long and the Short and the Tall.
He wrote more than a dozen children's books, including a series about a family called the Hollins who meet a vegetarian vampire called Count Alucard. He also wrote a book, Henry Hollins and the Dinosaur. His membership in the Magic Circle was a source of inspiration for these books. He also wrote 40 radio and television plays, as well as contributing to many TV series, including The Return of the Antelope and Minder.
He wrote a musical about the scarecrow Worzel Gummidge, and others based on the books Treasure Island and The Wind in the Willows. He also wrote Peter Pan: A Musical Adventure.
His most famous creation was probably Billy Liar (1960), co-written with life-long friend and collaborator Keith Waterhouse, and based on the latter's novel. His rise to fame had come from his play about British soldiers in the Malayan jungle The Long and the Short and the Tall.
He wrote more than a dozen children's books, including a series about a family called the Hollins who meet a vegetarian vampire called Count Alucard. He also wrote a book, Henry Hollins and the Dinosaur. His membership in the Magic Circle was a source of inspiration for these books. He also wrote 40 radio and television plays, as well as contributing to many TV series, including The Return of the Antelope and Minder.
He wrote a musical about the scarecrow Worzel Gummidge, and others based on the books Treasure Island and The Wind in the Willows. He also wrote Peter Pan: A Musical Adventure.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
September 7, 2025
Billy Liar by Keith Waterhouse
10 out of 10
We live in the age of the ‘fake news’ – indeed, have I read somewhere that this was selected as the word or the expression of the year by some dictionary, if not the Oxford then some other outfit, a few years ago – and hundreds of millions of people live in alternative universes – not realities, for it is not real that the very stable genius has won the elections, that Putin is a strong man, BolsaNero has something in his head other than air and the list can go on – therefore reading Billy Liar is both an exquisite supreme delight and counterintuitively, it feels humorous and rather…flat, in that Billy is an exceptional Liar, only he does not compare with what we now hear in the ‘real world’, where important leaders – even the one who sits on top of the former ‘beacon of democracy’- peddle such fantastic fare – let us take just this example of the Russian explanation for the poisoning of the leader of the opposition, Navalny, with military grade nerve gas, which has him doing it himself, to attract attention – this beats anything Billy has ever said
William Fisher is an intriguing, complicated, sometimes likeable, but more often infuriating main character, who has a vast, phenomenal imagination, living for much of the time in the fictional Ambrosia, where he is the prime minister – but he does have other roles – and friends of his have important positions…this is a very useful, if not sine qua non artifice, given that the reality around him can be quite bleak – he indeed takes the machine gun he has in Ambrosia and uses it on the real humans that upset him, if only in his own mind…the gun does not exist – and besides, he does know this land does not exist outside his head, as opposed to the – let us say more than a billion at the very least – people who are convinced that Qanon is real, the world is led by lizards, pedophiles and that George Soros is the ultimate Satan…oh and Covid does not exist.
His humor is exhilarating, even when it is dark – maybe especially then – as exemplified by what he wants to put on his tombstone – ‘here lies Billy Fisher’ – in recognition of the lies he cannot help himself from spitting out repeatedly – these range from the serious, maintaining he has a job with the famous comedian Billy Boone and he is going to London, to the futile, pretending he has a dog, sister, even presenting The Witch aka Barbara, one of his three girlfriends, to the mother of his best friend and infuriating her by saying this is his sibling and the woman retorts that she knows Barbara and this lie is insulting.
Billy Fisher lives with his parents and his grandma – albeit the latter might expire at some early or later stage – and the relationship is more than conflictual, it seems to be an eternal fight – especially with his father, who has had enough of his son’s clever, patronizing attitude and threatens to have all his things and the nineteen year old man out – which the hero or antihero might like to see resolved by moving to London, where he claims to have a job as a script writer, when all he has is a an answer from the comedian who states that though he had liked his jokes and pays for material, he does not have a staff, just some people who work with him, presumably as free lancers and on a part time basis, or just get money for humor that the artist can use…
William works for the undertaking firm Shadrack & Duxbury – the latter insists on being called councilor and always, as if he is some sort of royal and his highness must never be absent from the protocol which a majestic figure necessitates – but his attitude towards his job is more than feckless, he has at home hundreds of calendars that he had been required to post and there are other tasks that he had never completed – if he had ever started them – and this would lead to a confrontation with both Shadrack and Duxbury, though not concomitantly, and the former would insist on the fact that the letter of resignation is rendered obsolete by the need to analyze the many prejudices caused to the undertakers and find the manner in which their rebellious employee would compensate the firm.
The protagonist is engaged with two girls, he had given a ring to the Witch aka Barbara, a girl that is always eating quantities of oranges, does not always tell the truth herself – see the case of the silver cross – and acts as if she had rehearsed her gestures in a mirror, and then asks for it back, to have it adjusted, only to give it and the cross taken from Barbara’s bag to another, Rita, a waitress that is placed somewhere under the level of her competitor, at least in terms of witty conversation, education and sophistication – erudition might be an oxymoron for both of these betrayed damsels in distress…
Billy Liar has a habit of imitating those he talks to – though that is a human trait, as we find from the quintessential Influence by Robert Cialdini http://realini.blogspot.com/2013/10/i... where we have the Principle of Social Proof, the idea that ‘when in Rome, do what the Romans do’, we look to others for model, inspiration, to imitate, especially in unfamiliar circumstances…the example of a killing is given, when about nineteen or more had witnessed the attack, but everyone waited for the others to take the initiative – and he has the most exalting, amusing ideas, dialogues, jokes, such as thinking of hypothetical conversations with Bertrand Russell, the copy of the sublime The Loved One http://realini.blogspot.com/2018/08/t... by the stupendous Evelyn Waugh
He tries to use some sex pills – albeit they are probably not what it is advertised, considering the dozing effect they have – on Barbara, in order to have the Witch copulate with him, but he never takes the caresses further than a quite innocent stage, in spite of the – quite, if not absolutely false – declarations of love that they make, with her stating that she would love him even if he were to shoot her parents – in one of the multitude of morbid, yet hilarious moments, he says he would be ready to shoot her, never mind her relations, although this is just said to himself – he knows she is false though and is ready to tell her ‘look chum, I do all these tricks myself, I know them’ and he would emphasize her own disingenuity, when he has to face both her and Rita, in the dance club, where the two discover that they have both been given the same ring and furthermore, Rita has a chain that belongs to Barbara.
The one that Billy loves anyway might be the third, Liz, a quite mysterious girl, who disappears for weeks, is not a virgin, and even this third more appropriate connection might not be genuine enough for the Eternal Liar – when given the option of living with this admirable woman, it is not clear – let us keep it Under Wraps, as in the Jethro Tull hit – if the antihero will take the chance…
10 out of 10
We live in the age of the ‘fake news’ – indeed, have I read somewhere that this was selected as the word or the expression of the year by some dictionary, if not the Oxford then some other outfit, a few years ago – and hundreds of millions of people live in alternative universes – not realities, for it is not real that the very stable genius has won the elections, that Putin is a strong man, BolsaNero has something in his head other than air and the list can go on – therefore reading Billy Liar is both an exquisite supreme delight and counterintuitively, it feels humorous and rather…flat, in that Billy is an exceptional Liar, only he does not compare with what we now hear in the ‘real world’, where important leaders – even the one who sits on top of the former ‘beacon of democracy’- peddle such fantastic fare – let us take just this example of the Russian explanation for the poisoning of the leader of the opposition, Navalny, with military grade nerve gas, which has him doing it himself, to attract attention – this beats anything Billy has ever said
William Fisher is an intriguing, complicated, sometimes likeable, but more often infuriating main character, who has a vast, phenomenal imagination, living for much of the time in the fictional Ambrosia, where he is the prime minister – but he does have other roles – and friends of his have important positions…this is a very useful, if not sine qua non artifice, given that the reality around him can be quite bleak – he indeed takes the machine gun he has in Ambrosia and uses it on the real humans that upset him, if only in his own mind…the gun does not exist – and besides, he does know this land does not exist outside his head, as opposed to the – let us say more than a billion at the very least – people who are convinced that Qanon is real, the world is led by lizards, pedophiles and that George Soros is the ultimate Satan…oh and Covid does not exist.
His humor is exhilarating, even when it is dark – maybe especially then – as exemplified by what he wants to put on his tombstone – ‘here lies Billy Fisher’ – in recognition of the lies he cannot help himself from spitting out repeatedly – these range from the serious, maintaining he has a job with the famous comedian Billy Boone and he is going to London, to the futile, pretending he has a dog, sister, even presenting The Witch aka Barbara, one of his three girlfriends, to the mother of his best friend and infuriating her by saying this is his sibling and the woman retorts that she knows Barbara and this lie is insulting.
Billy Fisher lives with his parents and his grandma – albeit the latter might expire at some early or later stage – and the relationship is more than conflictual, it seems to be an eternal fight – especially with his father, who has had enough of his son’s clever, patronizing attitude and threatens to have all his things and the nineteen year old man out – which the hero or antihero might like to see resolved by moving to London, where he claims to have a job as a script writer, when all he has is a an answer from the comedian who states that though he had liked his jokes and pays for material, he does not have a staff, just some people who work with him, presumably as free lancers and on a part time basis, or just get money for humor that the artist can use…
William works for the undertaking firm Shadrack & Duxbury – the latter insists on being called councilor and always, as if he is some sort of royal and his highness must never be absent from the protocol which a majestic figure necessitates – but his attitude towards his job is more than feckless, he has at home hundreds of calendars that he had been required to post and there are other tasks that he had never completed – if he had ever started them – and this would lead to a confrontation with both Shadrack and Duxbury, though not concomitantly, and the former would insist on the fact that the letter of resignation is rendered obsolete by the need to analyze the many prejudices caused to the undertakers and find the manner in which their rebellious employee would compensate the firm.
The protagonist is engaged with two girls, he had given a ring to the Witch aka Barbara, a girl that is always eating quantities of oranges, does not always tell the truth herself – see the case of the silver cross – and acts as if she had rehearsed her gestures in a mirror, and then asks for it back, to have it adjusted, only to give it and the cross taken from Barbara’s bag to another, Rita, a waitress that is placed somewhere under the level of her competitor, at least in terms of witty conversation, education and sophistication – erudition might be an oxymoron for both of these betrayed damsels in distress…
Billy Liar has a habit of imitating those he talks to – though that is a human trait, as we find from the quintessential Influence by Robert Cialdini http://realini.blogspot.com/2013/10/i... where we have the Principle of Social Proof, the idea that ‘when in Rome, do what the Romans do’, we look to others for model, inspiration, to imitate, especially in unfamiliar circumstances…the example of a killing is given, when about nineteen or more had witnessed the attack, but everyone waited for the others to take the initiative – and he has the most exalting, amusing ideas, dialogues, jokes, such as thinking of hypothetical conversations with Bertrand Russell, the copy of the sublime The Loved One http://realini.blogspot.com/2018/08/t... by the stupendous Evelyn Waugh
He tries to use some sex pills – albeit they are probably not what it is advertised, considering the dozing effect they have – on Barbara, in order to have the Witch copulate with him, but he never takes the caresses further than a quite innocent stage, in spite of the – quite, if not absolutely false – declarations of love that they make, with her stating that she would love him even if he were to shoot her parents – in one of the multitude of morbid, yet hilarious moments, he says he would be ready to shoot her, never mind her relations, although this is just said to himself – he knows she is false though and is ready to tell her ‘look chum, I do all these tricks myself, I know them’ and he would emphasize her own disingenuity, when he has to face both her and Rita, in the dance club, where the two discover that they have both been given the same ring and furthermore, Rita has a chain that belongs to Barbara.
The one that Billy loves anyway might be the third, Liz, a quite mysterious girl, who disappears for weeks, is not a virgin, and even this third more appropriate connection might not be genuine enough for the Eternal Liar – when given the option of living with this admirable woman, it is not clear – let us keep it Under Wraps, as in the Jethro Tull hit – if the antihero will take the chance…
February 2, 2017
As well as studying the novel and writing an essay about it in my Northern Literature module at university I saw the play back in 2014 at the Royal Exchange in Manchester. I found it fantastically funny, charming but also quite sad. Great play.
September 23, 2020
Back in the Stone Age, I rather enjoyed studying this little play for my English Literature CSE . It was gritty and about people like us. The ordinary man on the street. No frills.
Billy Fisher has always got his head in the clouds. He longs to escape his small Yorkshire town and working class roots. His compulsive lying gets him into sticky situations and many pickles. He ends up engaged to all 3 of his girlfriends. Finally he has a chance to leave it all behind. But will he take this chance or stay with what he knows best?
The novel was written by Keith Waterhouse and then the play (which I read) was co-written with Willis Hall. They were lifelong friends and went on to write more together. I bought this copy recently for the sake of nostalgia. Then came the film adaption in 1963 starring Tom Courtenay.
It was quite different to be studying modern plays at school as opposed to the normal classics. I liked that Billy was one of us. The ordinary person trying to get by in this difficult world. It’s a quick, funny read with a few lessons learnt along the way. It brought to mind a poem by Sir Walter Scott my Mum has quoted many times “Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.”
Billy Fisher has always got his head in the clouds. He longs to escape his small Yorkshire town and working class roots. His compulsive lying gets him into sticky situations and many pickles. He ends up engaged to all 3 of his girlfriends. Finally he has a chance to leave it all behind. But will he take this chance or stay with what he knows best?
The novel was written by Keith Waterhouse and then the play (which I read) was co-written with Willis Hall. They were lifelong friends and went on to write more together. I bought this copy recently for the sake of nostalgia. Then came the film adaption in 1963 starring Tom Courtenay.
It was quite different to be studying modern plays at school as opposed to the normal classics. I liked that Billy was one of us. The ordinary person trying to get by in this difficult world. It’s a quick, funny read with a few lessons learnt along the way. It brought to mind a poem by Sir Walter Scott my Mum has quoted many times “Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.”
March 16, 2013
Read this while looking for a play for an EFL group. This did not fit the bill, but the whole thing was so negative... maybe the novel is better.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews