Billy Liar

Seasons

1973

UK

7.5

Billy is an idealistic young man trapped in a boring life. He does a boring job in the office of a funeral home with a perpetually strict employer, he dates a foolish girl who can't satisfy him.

Episode List

S1 • E1

Billy and the Party Spirit

A constant source of annoyance to his father, Billy's imagination works overtime to transport him away from the mundanities of modern life at the funeral parlour.

S1 • E2

Billy and the French Connection

Billy's girlfriend Sandra is a student at Stradhoughton Art School. To Billy, painting means Paris and Paris means France, so his fantasies take on a distinctly gallic flavour...

S1 • E3

Billy and the Lost Weekend

Billy's idea of a cultural weekend in Stratford-upon-Avon doesn't necessarily involve any Shakespeare. Having persuaded his parents to let his fiancée accompany them he is foiled when Barbara insists on separate rooms.

S1 • E4

Billy and the Monster

Billy's father despairs of Billy's obsession with making model prehistoric monsters. In Billy's imagination, however, the models take on truly monster proportions!

S1 • E5

Billy and the Cornish Split

Billy acquires a model of a Concorde and dreams of being a wartime bomber pilot. His flight of fancy crash lands when he meets a freaked out hippy friend on his way to joining a commune in Cornwall.

S1 • E6

Billy and the Freudian Slip

Billy's parents - in cahoots with Mr. Shadrack - send him to a psychiatrist, but it would appear that Dr. Smiley is not the best choice as medical adviser..

S1 • E7

Billy and the Night In

Billy and Barbara offer to babysit Grandma so his parents can go to the pub for a few hours. Billy has other plans, however, and they don't involve keeping Grandma company.

S1 • E8

Billy and the Long Lunch

Billy has a plan and that plan is simple - take Barbara for a mostly liquid lunch, escort her home and invite her to lie down on the sofa. Fate, however, has other ideas

S1 • E9

Billy and the Gift of the Magi

Billy has his heart set on a pair of bright yellow trousers for Christmas, but there are two problems. One - they're expensive, and two - his Dad is determined that he should never wear such horrible things.

S1 • E10

Billy and the Au Pair

Barbara is planning the colour of their new bathroom and scans through House and Home. Billy is more concerned with the contents of his own glossy magazine, however.

S1 • E11

Billy and the Key of the Door

Billy's parents have to go away overnight to attend his uncle's funeral. His Dad is decidedly apprehensive about leaving Billy alone with Gran, a situation which is escalated when Billy is left in sole charge of the shop by Mr. Shadrack.

S1 • E12

Billy and Pandora's Box

Billy's magpie tendencies are well-known but happily concealed until his family find the key to his secret store cupboard. Its peculiar contents start a chain of events that no-one could have foreseen.

S1 • E13

Billy and the Alter Ego

Billy's twin brother Boris is endowed with every virtue that Billy does not possess. He is shrewd, mature, ruthless, successful, wealthy and compassionate. Naturally, Billy's girlfriends are anxious to meet this paragon of virtues.