I am going to be looking at three plays, they are 'Billy Liar', 'Spring and Port Wine' and, 'Ernie's Incredible Illucinations'. 'Billy Liar' is about a boy with a very vivid imagination.

Plays Comparison

I am going to be looking at three plays, they are ‘Billy Liar’, ‘Spring and Port Wine’ and, ‘Ernie’s Incredible Illucinations’. ‘Billy Liar’ is about a boy with a very vivid imagination. As he tries to live in his fantasy world, he lets go of reality, leading to all sorts of problems. ‘Spring and Port Wine’ is about a Bolton family

The first difference is the style of the plays. ‘Billy Liar’ and ‘Spring and Port Wine’ are both very naturalistic. However, ‘Ernie’s Incredible Illucinations’ is surrealistic. The writer intends this. If we look at the plays and try to compare them, we find that the only difference is ‘Ernie’s Incredible Illucinations’, which takes an idea of the characters imagination, one step further. Ernie imagines things that then become real, and as an audience, we see the effect of his imagination on everyone around him. ‘Billy Liar’ and ‘Spring and Port Wine’ show us the inside of the characters imagination. In that way ‘Ernie’s Incredible Illucinations’ show us a reality, the other two plays show us the ‘made up’ world, so that although the characters think fantasy thoughts, these thoughts do not affect life around them.

The cultures of the time were evolving, children were trying to voice their views and make a statement about themselves. All the plays have a rogue character, trying to break free from the Victorian vision of a child and the parental grip, which enforces it. Billy experiments with relationships and socialising, Rafe’s children also experiment with new ways of life; Ernie just uses his imagination and creates havoc. Fashion was taking over, so now for the first time children were open to advertisements.

Both ‘Billy Liar’ and ‘Spring and Port Wine’ are interpretations of Middle class family life. ...

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Both ‘Billy Liar’ and ‘Spring and Port Wine’ are interpretations of Middle class family life. ‘Ernie’s Incredible Illucinations’ is a lower middle class family. We know that Geoffrey runs his own Garage and that Rafe is a self-educated perfectionist engineer. Whilst Geoffrey performs it is easy to see he is trying to be the traditional man of the house. This can be compared to Rafe, he also feels he must bring his children up the way he was, we can see this when he refers to the union’s strikes. ‘Ernie’s Incredible Illucinations’ appears to be the opposite. Ernie seem to teach his elders the ways of the young, for example he takes his Grandma into a boxing ring and persuades her to go into the ring and fight.

‘Spring and Port Wine’ is set just over ten years after World War 2. Society is rebuilding itself; many people turned to comedy to lighten what could be very emotional times. Families are recovering from loss of life. All the plays are written within ten years of each other, as an audience we see the same sort of era from three different perspectives. The children ‘Billy Liar’ is set in north England, ‘Spring and Port Wine’ in Bolton, and we never find out about ‘Ernie’s Incredible Illucinations’. The father’s are all either professionals or in management positions.

I conclude that the three plays contain many similarities and a few very subtle differences. They paint a good picture of the struggles of children in the period between 1958-69. The writers may all have had a common idea but there is a different feel about each play. ‘Billy Liar’ is bright and cheerful, ‘Spring and Port Wine’ is a bit dark and makes the audience think. ‘Ernie’s Incredible Illucinations’ is completely surreal.