In a return to its roots, Today's Joanna Page eschews the excitement of the review and the intellectual delight of the polemic in favour of pure pictures, since it's time for the 2004 touring production of Billy Liar, which I obviously didn't see (even though it began its run at Bromley's Churchill theatre).
I can't even comment on the story, since although I've seen the movie version, it was so long go, all I can remember are about three images from the whole thing. And I haven't seen the TV series. Or read the book.
Oh dear.
Anyway, the 2004 production starred Two Pints of Lager…'s Ralph Little as Billy. Our Joanna played the 'good' girlfriend Liz, “a scruffy girl in need of a new skirt. She is nevertheless the one who truly understands Billy, and the only one he really has a genuine interest in. Before her appearance, Billy pretends he doesn't have much interest in her, but it is clear when she appears that he is still smitten with her.”
For those interested in the plot, here you go:
The semi-comical story is about Billy Fisher, a working-class 19-year-old living with his parents in the fictional town of Stradhoughton in Yorkshire. Bored by his job as a lowly clerk for an undertaker, Billy spends his time indulging in Walter Mitty-like fantasies and dreams of life in the big city as a comedy writer. However, with three girlfriends on the go, his tendency to overimagination comes at a cost.
(from Wikipedia).
After so many posh English accents, I imagine a Northern English accent must have been refreshing for JP.
Next week: To end on a high note (ho, ho) before I head off on holiday, we'll be looking at Very Annie Mary, in which every single actor in Wales gets together to listen to Rachel Griffiths sing for poorly Joanna Page.
Here are some more pics for you. Full sizes ones are available from the jamd web site by clicking on them; all are by Steve Finn/Getty Images:
July 21, 2008 | Reply
For this post alone, none of the pictures are showing up, Rob. But maybe it's because I'm on the wrong side of the Atlantic, like with some of the videos?
July 21, 2008 | Reply
Could be. They're not on my server, they're on the jamd server so they may be blocking them. If you click through, can you see them?
July 21, 2008 | Reply
Very odd. That's what freed them up. And when I'd come back from clicking through each one, there it would be on the site. Thanks for the tip!
July 22, 2008 | Reply
Welcome to the wonderful world of hotlinking and caching. Once you've been to the web site, your browser has a copy, so uses that when it displays my site. But for some reason, you can't get the pics without going to the site. It's odd, because I've never seen that kind of hotlink blocking occur because of the country someone's in: I've tried it in four separate browsers on three different computers, and they all display this page correctly without having been to the jamd site first.