Billy Liar (PG)

A fantastic new 4K restoration of the 60s New Wave classic.

In 1963, John Schlesinger reunited with the screenwriting partnership of Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall following the success of A Kind of Loving, to create Billy Liar, a comedic counterpart to that earlier film, which was also filmed around Manchester and Lancashire.

Starring Tom Courtenay, Julie Christie and Wilfred Pickles, the film follows Billy Fisher, a lazy, wildly inventive and irresponsible clerk in a small northern town. Unable to accept an uneasy domestic situation with his parents and frustrated by his drab everyday life, Billy escapes into a world of fantasy, imagining he is a successful man of the world.

But Billy’s fabrications become more complex when he engages two girls at the same time and invents a demand for his non-existent writing talents. That is, until he meets Liz – the one woman who might understand him and offer his one real chance for escape.