The film has a great sequence where Courtenay does voices in his boss's office that may remind you of one of the highlight's of Tom Cruise's career, his underwear dancing-karaoke scene in Risky Business. The whole film is really good - affectionate, compassionate - about Billy Fisher's (Courtenay) gradual slide towards needing to decide whether he really is going to go to London to try to make his advanced powers of imagination into a career, or whether he's going to stay in the small town with this family. His encounters with a big-time producer from London with whom he has corresponded, and the great scenes with his undertaker boss, come from a period when official culture reflected what people still know - that business is often run by inhumane and mentally-limited schmucks who make the world worse, not better, that business is not usually so fricking efficient in spite of its chest-thumping tributes to its virile hatred of waste and slack, that the entertainment business in particular is not obviously the right outlet for a brilliant imagination.
What if it's better to dream at home than write commercial screenplays? Billy Liar can still ask the question.
What if it's better to dream at home than write commercial screenplays? Billy Liar can still ask the question.