From the moment the curtain lifts, the mood turns gloomy and mysterious, as if the audience is being prepared for something tragic. In what appears a seemingly normal neighbourhood with kids playing, and a family having a celebratory dinner, the fun is interrupted when an unexpected visitor arrives. The family’s housekeeper then announces that ‘An inspector calls’, which will later change the lives of the Birling family as they know it.
An Inspector Calls is a must-see play that is showing at Edinburgh’s Festival Theatre between January 31 and February 4. The three-act drama is set on a single night in 1912, when a man calling himself inspector Goole pays a visit to the wealthy Birling family in the industrial town of Brumley. The production has been hailed as a remarkable classic, and is part of many British school curriculums, as well as ne of the prescribed texts for the English Literature GCSE.
An Inspector Calls was written by J. B. Priestley and was first performed in the Soviet Union in 1945. The play was later revived by director Stephen Daldry in 1992 where it won a Tony Award for The Best Revival of a Play. Unsurprisingly, it was also turned into a film (it’s 7.6 on IMDb, by the way) in 2015 starring David Thewlis and Sophie Rundle.
On top of thrilling props and mood-setting lighting, the play explores the hypocrisies of upper middle class and capitalism as a whole as well as our inner moral compass after a young working-class woman, Eva Smith, commits suicide. The chain of events that led to the tragic event are then explored, with the family realising they had more to do with it than first thought.
While some might perceive it as a battle between socialism and capitalism – especially when it was first performed in Moscow right after the Second World War – it is more a battle of morality and ethics. While no one actually killed the woman, the plot explores how we all can play a part in someone’s demise without realising it, as that last straw or a call for help was all that was needed to push someone off the edge.
An Inspector Calls also explores the timeless themes of how the ‘every man for himself’ mentality is harmful to society, and leaves the audience thinking how there are millions of working-class Eva’s out there, event today.
So, expect a night of thought-provoking and suspensive action with excellent acting and a gripping plot. However, we won’t tell you how it ends, you’ll just have to come see it for yourself. You can book your tickets here.
And if you missed it in Edinburgh, you can also come see it at Glasgow’s Theatre Royal between May 23 and 27.