Billy Liar - Interactions between characters and the build up of tension.

Authors Avatar
Billy Liar Coursework

Interactions between characters and the build up of tension.

How does Billy contrast from the other characters in the Play Billy Liar, and how do the other characters react to him?

Billy Lair, originally a play by Keith Waterhouse published in 1960, was later adapted as a film and play script with the aid of Willis Hall; an experienced play write.

Billy Liar focuses, not surprisingly, on Billy Fisher; a well educated highly imaginative 19 year old living in the 1950s who simply cannot stop himself from lying. His lies to him are his fantasies and lives them out in graphic detail, a device that is difficult to recreate on stage with no narrator or ability to make each fantasy a reality as in the film or with the use of a passive voice in the novel.

The Fishers who would have been described at the time as "new money" are desperately trying to fit in to their new "Lower Middle Class" stereotype but fail to do so as they insist on purchasing lavish over the top furniture in an attempt to flaunt their new found wealth as they know no better. They came into money thanks to uneducated but hard working Geoffrey, Billy's father, who runs a garage.
Join now!


Billy's personality contrasts greatly to that of the majority of other characters in the play, not least Geoffrey who he is constantly infuriating with his grammatically correct and typically upper class comments and declarations. This is his own way putting his father down. Billy assumes the voice of a highly educated person and talks to Geoffery at a level he is unable to comprehend. Billy realizes his families struggle for social status, although he himself believes that he is already a class ahead, and knows that this greatly infuriates Geoffrey because he is not capable of responding at ...

This is a preview of the whole essay