Billy Liar Lyceum Theatre, Crewe

EARLY in Billy Liar, grumpy old Florence reminds her daughter Alice to buy a pork pie. How appropriate. As the title of the play suggests, the plot, as well as much of the comedy, is based on porkies.

In fact, Billy Liar's life is one great porky. He lives in a fantasy world in which his father is captain of an ocean-going tanker, relatives are at death's door and his novel is to be published by Christmas. He is also a work-shy petty thief.

None of this, remarkably, deters the girls, who are drawn to him as maggots to a … well, mouldy pork pie. At one point Billy is engaged to two girls with another on the horizon.

All this is handled in fine style by Middle Ground Theatre Company. Nathan Hannan is a wickedly comic Billy Liar, constantly at loggerheads with his authoritarian father, played by James Morley, who gets some of the best laughs.

For my money, though, the star of the show is Sally Sanders who, as Billy's ailing and curmudgeonly grandmother Florence, delivers a wonderful rant at the start of the play. In what is, in effect, a monologue, she rambles on about Billy, her health, a bandage, the doctor, and more.

Janey Lawson, as Billy's fiancée Rita, also injects vigour into a slightly dated script which does have several flat spots.

Quibbles aside, however, and telling no porkies, this is an enjoyable night out.

Billy Liar runs until Saturday, March 13. Tickets are available on 01270 537 333.

Paul Gubbins