IN REAL life, against a backdrop of global financial disintegration, it would be hard to muster much sympathy for a compulsively lying workshy layabout like Billy Fisher.

But our films and theatre have always looked rather forgivingly on the romantic dreamer – especially when their world is as depressingly humdrum as that of our hero.

Barely out of his teens, undertaker’s clerk Billy is closeted in a drab semi in an unspecified northern town with his nagging mum (Helen Fraser), hectoring dad (Dicken Ashworth) and tea-supping, casually racist grandmother (Sally Sanders).

It’s little surprise, then, that he idles away his existence with vivid fantasies of becoming prime minister or finding employment as a comedy writer. His slippery nature also means he has three girlfriends on the go at once – the straight-laced Barbara (Lauren Drummond, who deserves great admiration for having to eat five oranges in every performance), brassy, loud-mouthed Rita (Victoria Hawkins) and Liz (Holly Quin-Ankrah), the only one who seems to understand Billy.

Sadly, Middle Ground Theatre Company’s production of Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall’s play bears poor comparison with the film starring Tom Courtenay.

The detailed set, with its Bakelite radio and monolithic furniture, nicely evokes that fag-end 50s feeling, and there are good individual performances. But the dismal atmosphere of the era is reflected in the show’s sluggish pace and uncertain tone.

A story of trapped lives and frustrated ambition, this should be urgent and heartfelt – but it comes across as more kitsch than kitchen sink, a comedy fatally lacking in drama or pathos. And any sympathy the audience might have for Billy is undermined by the fact he comes across as an irritating jerk who’s far too old to be living with his parents.

Box office: 01962 840440