Courtenay & Christie – Billy Liar

Actor Tom Courtenay has been knighted by the Queen at Buckingham Palace in recognition of his 40 years on stage and screen.

Speaking after the ceremony, Sir Tom said: “I couldn’t refuse a knighthood. It’s for my mother and father – they would have loved it.”

The 63-year-old star of seminal 1960s films such as Billy Liar and The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner was part of a wave of working class actors.

Billy Liar – still in town

Billy Liar, a story of smalltown frustration, captivated a generation, pre-empted the 60s – and even inspired Oasis. As the stage play returns, Laura Barton asks Tom Courtenay and Julie Christie why it endures.

I don’t think about Billy Liar very often.” Tom Courtenay’s voice hovers on the line. We have been discussing his upcoming holiday to the north-east coast, splashing about in the warm shallows of the present-day; at this detour into the past, he pauses, and retreats a little. “If I read it now, it would make me laugh,” he concludes lightly, distantly. “But I honestly don’t know why it’s lasted. Who can say why some things are successful?”

It is now 50 years since Keith Waterhouse’s novel transferred to the stage, casting in its title role first Albert Finney and later, Courtenay. Published in 1959, Billy Liar has, over those five decades, enjoyed a rich and varied existence, remembered not only as a novel and a play, but also as a film (again starring Courtenay), a musical and a TV series. This Saturday will see it revived once more, in a lavish stage adaptation at the West Yorkshire Playhouse.

Julie Christie :

Julie Frances Christie (born 14 April 1941) is a British actress and sex symbol. A pop icon of the “swinging London” era of the 1960s, she has won the Academy, Golden Globe, BAFTA, and Screen Actors Guild Awards.