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| Billy Liar
| | Keith Waterhouse
| To Billy Fisher, Stradhoughton is one long subtopian cliché - from the garish neon sign, 'Come Dancing', outside the Roxy, to the St Botolph's wayside pulpit reading, 'It is Better To Cry Over Spilt Milk Than To Try And Put It Back In The Bottle'. And the dimmer his surroundings, the keener is the edge on Billy's sardonic wit and the more fantastic are his compensatory day-dreams. Not surprisingly he lands up in trouble. For neither his family nor his undertaker employers take kindly to his fantasies; nor do his three girl-friends, at least two of whom he is engaged to! So Billy wades through a confused, tragi-comic Saturday, as his past lies follow him from home to the office, from the office to the crowded Yorkshire streets, and from there to the tawdry glamour of pub and dance-hall where they finally catch up with him. And at the end of it all, his bang of revolt peters out in adolescent whimper.
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