Billy

This musical, developed from the play 'Billy Liar', centres around Billy Fisher who lives in a small northern town with his parents and his gran. Billy has a penchant for telling lies which constantly gets him into trouble. To date he has had two fiances and a pressing need to explain to his  boss about money missing from the business.

But Billy is a fantasist and to escape from his self-induced troubles and humdrum life he has invented his own make-believe world where he is feted as a star, a celebrity and a hero.

Billy is a huge role to take on. Spencer Hawkes made a really good job of portraying the star part with all his exasperating ways and succeeded in making him utterly believable. The best known of the songs from this show, 'I belong to the stars', was delivered with the great panache it warrants. However, for me, 'I missed the last rainbow', sung with wistfulness and a certain amount of sadness, was the most teling piece.

The three girls in his life - Barbara (Annemarie McDonald), Rita (Tracy York) and Liz (Caroline Reddon) - were all played as well-differentiated characters. Billy's gran was played with a suitably aged air by Glenda Briggs and Michael Graves gave a very robust performance as Billy's dad. Other parts were played by Christopher Gent (Arthur Crabtree), Steve Kelly (Shadrack) and Bob Townson (Councillor Duxbury) made significant contributions to the show. Finally, a well done to Claire Patrick who stepped into the breach, in fine showbiz tradition, as Billy's mum, just for the final show.

The chorus were in good voice and had a very busy evening taking on a number of different guises in Billy's world of make-believe as well as the people of Billy's home town.

The whole show was supported with much vigour by Keith Green and his orchestra - lovely to have live music! The show was also lit sympathetically and the costumes reflected the period in whichthis musical was set. This piece was a challenge for a small company as it demands a certain amount of spectacular presentation for Billy's fantasies; the set had been designed to make the most of the available space and to facilitate the transition from one place to another. The stage crew certainly rose to their challenge.

I always enjoy going to see a rarely-performed musical amd I applaud any company who choose to put on such a show. Judging by the spontaneous laughter from the audience throughout the evening I think they went home feeing they had been well and truly entetained. I certainly did! Well done to you all on your great effort and thank you for inviting me.

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