Bamberg University English Drama Group

proudly presents

the 1985 production of

Billy Liar

by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall

Cast

Billy Fisher ....................................Dieter Reichl

Billy's parents:

Alice Fisher ....................................Beatrix Hesse

Geoffrey Fisher .............................Michael Ehrhardt

Billy's grandmother:

Florence Boothroyd ....................Elisabeth Reif

Billy's fiancées:

Barbara ...........................................Ulrike Linz

Rita ..................................................Cornelia Daig

Liz ....................................................Elisabeth Röthlein

Billy's friend:

Arthur ..............................................Mike Claridge

The play

Billy Liar can be interpreted at two levels - and possibly at more. On the one hand, there is what we might describe as the approach of Billy's parents - and, indeed, of most of the other characters in the play. Here, Billy and his dreamworlds are seen as a form of mild mental illness. The solution advocated by this group is that Billy should - somehow - become more sensible, possibly with the assistance of someone like Barbara. That is, these people do little, if nothing, to really help Billy. Even Arthur, ostensibly Billy's best friend, eventually gives up in disgust without having really made the effort to understand Billy ... and finally walks off with one of Billy's fiancées.

This, however, is surely not what we should deduce from the play. Billy is aware of his faults, along with the need to change - but feels that, try as he may, he cannot improve enough. In a telling comment, he says to Liz

I turn over a new leaf every day ... but the blots show through the page.

lt is only with her help that he realizes his need to get away, to define himself by himself, to find the „real" Billy Fisher. As we come to see this, we also understand that „society" that the norms and standards of the world presented in the play, are every bit as much part of a dreamworld as Billy's ideas. Alice approves of Barbara, and thinks that she will do a great deal of good for Billy; yet she fails to realize that Barbara is using Billy as a means to an end, as a way of obtaining her „little Billy and little Barbara and the cottage in Devon with the lily pond". When Barbara suspects that Billy is having a relationship with Rita, her main fear is that her own dreamworld may now not be achieved.

Geoffrey, too, is a sham figure. He likes to see himseif as a strong character, as the leader of the family. Yet it soon becomes evident that his wife is by far the stronger of the two; moreover, when Billy finally turns on him and reminds him of the lack of sympathy, affection and support which his son has received from his father, Geoffrey is reduced to a whining shadow of his former self, almost - or so it seems - afraid that his son, too, will show him up for what he really is. And when the crisis arises in the second act, all he can do is to stand around helplessly until he is given his instructions. Alice is clearly the firmer of the two; however, she too has not taken the trouble to really get to know her son. Although she does not see everything and everybody in stereotypes - like her mother - she is too ready to take people at face value. Thus Liz, for example, is „that mucky girl" - in contrast to her favourable remarks about Barbara.

The irony here is that Liz - who is described in similarly dismissive terms by Barbara and Arthur - is the only one who makes the effort to really help Billy. She is possibly so disliked by the others precisely because she does not belong, because she has broken out of the stranglehold of the little social circle. She represents danger; she provides the hand that rips away the real curtain of lies, deception and blindness.

The play opens with what we can imagine is a typical Saturday morning in the Fisher household - Grandmother as peculiar as usual, Mother and Father arguing, Billy forgetting - intentionally or not - that he is supposed to be at work. This morning is different, however: Billy has received an offer of a Job in London - or so he claims. But before he leaves, there are a number of pieces of unfinished business with which he must deal. He is in trouble at work (undertakers do not approve of their employees filling up coffins with water and playing naval battles in them, still less of stealing the firm's money and property); he is engaged to two girls at the same time; and he has stirred up numerous problems through the web of lies, half-lies and exaggerations which he has woven among all those who know him.

His parents, disbelieving his tale of a Job in London, generally approve of his „respectable" fiancée, the orange-consuming Barbara. Perhaps, or so they think, she will sort their Billy out, bring him to his senses. Yet Billy sees his relationship with her as something of an entertainment, and if he does ever seriously consider the idea of marriage, then it is in a dreamworld. The same is true of his relationship with Rita. For him, they are two separate worlds, with London forming a third.

And yet Billy is not all bad by any means; he is not the unfeeling, uncaring simpleton that some try to make him out to be. The impact of a family tragedy in the middle of the play is not inconsiderable: he shows his feelings in a dreamworld scene which, for all that it is amusing, none-theless displays his affection for the person concerned in an almost pathetic way.

This is made dearer when the catalysis, Liz, arrives. She knows that the only hope for Billy is to take him away from a situation where all know him. Here, he is defined by others. He rejects this definition by going off into his imagination, by creating a new persona for himseif. Liz sees in the offer of a job in London the chance to save Billy: a new career in a new place with new people will enable him to be himseif, to reestablish contact with reality. She is determined to take him away with her.

There is only one question: will Billy go, or will he stay in the soul-destroying atrnosphere of his home town?

(Michael Claridge)

The Production Team

Lighting ......................................................................Douglas MacKenzie

Set design .................................................................Douglas MacKenzie / Mike Claridge

Poster design ...........................................................Bernhard Linz

Make-up .....................................................................Bridget Doonan / Heidi Gannon / Ute Guthunz

Programme and newspaper notes .....................Ewald Mengel / Mike Claridge

Front of house .........................................................Heinrich Ramisch / Josef Schmied

Production secretary .............................................Ingeborg Penalba

Producer ....................................................................Mike Claridge

We would like to thank:

the Lehrstuhl für Englische Literaturwissenschaft for moral and tactical support

Mr. and Mrs. Ehrhardt for the loan of furniture

Mrs. Kotz of the University Press Office and Stadtbühne, WoBla and the Fränkischer Tag for free publicity

the janitors of the University for great patience

the Jugendzentrum for willing assistance and support, and especially Mr. Friedrich