A Comparison between Billy Liar and Shirley Valentine Essay -- Drama

A Comparison between Billy Liar and Shirley ValentineI have dear been studying Billy Liar and performing it as part of mymock ledgered drama GCSE, and have been asked to compare this theatrescript to the film script of Shirley Valentine. I have already giventhe first difference between these two scripts one is a theatrescript and the other is designed specifically for the big screen.Billy Liar was originally a novel written by Keith Waterhouse, whowith the help of Willis Hall made it into a theatre script in the1960s. Billy is an imaginative youth who is fighting to get out ofhis complacent, clich-ridden background. He was born and brought upin a town in Yorkshire and lives with his father, Geoffrey, mother,Alice, and grandmother, Florence. Billy has one-third girlfriends, Rita,Barbara and Liz, but he only shows genuine affection and feelingstowards Liz. Billy is always fantasising and making up things whichearns him the label liar. At the end of the play Billy decides to leave be hind his home and follow Liz to London but as we find out in the lastscene he chickens out and returns to the home he so desperatelywants to escape.Shirley Valentine on the other hand was written as a film script, bythe author Willy Russell in the 1980s, but the story is very sympatheticto that of Billy Liar. Shirley is a housewife and mother to two grownup children. Her husband Joe is very insensitive and unaffectionate.Shirleys best friend Jane invites Shi...