He doesn't feel grown up either, more like a 'juvenile lead.' All of which means he still finds occasion to tell lies, only its not so acceptable at 33 as it was at 17. Nor is it as charming in the dreay 1970's as it was in the innocent late 1950's.

His humor is exhilarating, even when it is dark – maybe especially then – as exemplified by what he wants to put on his tombstone – ‘here lies Billy Fisher’ – in recognition of the lies he cannot help himself from spitting out repeatedly – these range from the serious, maintaining he has a job with the famous comedian Billy Boone and he is going to London, to the futile, pretending he has a dog, sister, even presenting The Witch aka Barbara, one of his three girlfriends, to the mother of his best friend and infuriating her by saying this is his sibling and the woman retorts that she knows Barbara and this lie is insulting. And there is enough of a cliffhanger to keep you wanting to know: will Billy go to London (and leave his troubles and his two-and-a-half fiancees behind) or will he stay to face the music?Maggie Massimine says she is less angry now her husband’s addiction to fiction is recognised as an illness. Massimine himself appears ambivalent in recovery now his Pinocchio days have allegedly ended. “There was this wonderful character of me and he did things nobody else could do,” he says. “In some ways, I’m sad to see him go.”

On the surface, Billy Liar is a quirky little British movie portraying a day in the life of William (Billy) Fisher: an irresponsible day-dreamer whose frequent forays into his imaginary world, “Ambrosia,” often supersede his real-life duties and commitments. Billy is a young man who lives with his parents and elderly grandmother in 1960s Yorkshire. He has returned from a selective grammar school to dreary suburbia and his decidedly working-class parents. The resulting educational gap between the generations is obvious. Billy’s day-dreaming and compulsive lying lead to various predicaments, some hilarious and others more tragic. Our protagonist fumbles his way through life without much direction, much to the consternation of those around him. I had forgotten, until you remind me, about Billy’s rituals and so on, which now that you point it out are consistent with what we’d now call OCD traits. I would have hazarded until you mentioned OCD that these were signs of Billy’s enduring childishness — children of course count railings and so forth. But I suppose you could analyze the character and link OCD to his general neurosis. My dad never demonstrated what we’d now call OCD other than in his determination to work. Occasionally, in the evening, we’d see his lips moving. This is when he was writing things in his head.” Billy Fisher, the central character, is an intelligent, creative, educated, lower middle class 19 year old who is frustrated by his surroundings and dull clerical job at a local undertakers. His response is to retreat into Ambrosia, his private fantasy world, where he is a hero. He also responds by lying, indeed he's a pathological liar. His ludicrous deceptions result in some very amusing situations, but also in the melancholy that lies at the heart of the book. Billy dreams of moving to London, to work as a comic scriptwriter, and he has received some encouragement from an established comedian. As he works out how to make his move, his past catches up with him: multiple girlfriends, exasperated parents, his Gran, tiresome colleagues and some quite serious work misdemeanours. The play is set in one Saturday: Act 1 in the morning, Act 2 in the early evening, and Act 3 at night. Billy nearly emerges into the real, adult world when he’s on the moors with Liz, but he can’t seem to take the next step from “OMG, she really understands me” to “I’m in trouble Liz: all my lies are catching up with me; I’m doomed.” Perhaps his retreat from that step is simply psychological self-preservation, since the reality of his situation could easily lead to despair and depression (for which those with NPD are at higher risk). We shouldn't forget that young males 18-25 have the highest suicide rate in many Western countries.One of the film’s deliberate themes is frustration (inextricably linked with its setting). While the primary manifestations of this are obvious, the director subtly invites us to speculate further; e.g. on the unspoken effect of the death of Billy’s sister, or his father’s thwarted attempt to join the army. This is not, therefore, the story of a boy pursuing his dreams. Approaching Billy Liar with this expectation will lead to disappointment and a failure to appreciate the dilemma it explores (see Peter Bradshaw’s dismissive review in The Guardian). Intriguingly there’s more to it than this, because William Fisher is also the greatest OCD hero in English fiction and maybe he needs resurrecting. He exhibits a range of classic tics. He tells us that he has to repeat the phrase da da da da da da over and again to get unwelcome thoughts out of his head. He tries to feel normal by counting, and that he can get as far as the number 3000 without even stopping. His tactic to get out of the counting loop is to insert strange numbers and odd phrases like the Lord is my Shepherd .

Later whilst scouring the film catalogue at film school I discovered the classic 1963 film directed by John Schlesinger and starring Tom Courtenay as Billy Fisher. A film which took the grim up north stereotypes that had become the norm in British New Wave cinema and turned them on their head with comedy and the careful use of surrealism. Billy Liar is the chronicle of one decisive day in the life of its protagonist Billy Fisher; capturing brilliantly the claustrophobic atmosphere of a small town in Yorkshire after the second world war, it describes a young fantasist with a job at a 'funeral furnisher' and a bedroom at his parents' – and longing for escape to the Good Life in London. Some have described Billy Liar as a coming-of-age novel. This is true in the sense that Billy certainly falls within the age group transitioning from teenage innocence to adult responsibility. However, it’s no Bildungsroman , which Wikipedia defines as “a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood (coming of age), in which character change is important.” Billy Fisher lives with his parents and his grandma – albeit the latter might expire at some early or later stage – and the relationship is more than conflictual, it seems to be an eternal fight – especially with his father, who has had enough of his son’s clever, patronizing attitude and threatens to have all his things and the nineteen year old man out – which the hero or antihero might like to see resolved by moving to London, where he claims to have a job as a script writer, when all he has is a an answer from the comedian who states that though he had liked his jokes and pays for material, he does not have a staff, just some people who work with him, presumably as free lancers and on a part time basis, or just get money for humor that the artist can use…He manages to sabotage his engagement to Barbara (aka "The Witch") by borrowing her engagement ring, supposedly to take it to the jeweller's "to be adjusted", and giving it to his other girlfriend Rita! Oh, and then there's Liz as well... As if that wasn't bad enough, the grand ending, a chaotic Festival in the Shepford town centre, barely raises a tired smile. As well as daydreaming the day away in his beloved Ambrosia, he spends most of his time thinking. Billy has two types of thinking: No.1 thinking which is deliberate, and controlled; and No.2 thinking which consists of obsessive speculation about all the what-if's of life, and to be avoided. Perhaps I’m drawn to that period because I felt like an angry young man too. Maybe there’s more than a little bit of William Fisher in me