Inspector Calls Review

An Inspector Calls Review

I went to An Inspector Calls recently at the Curve Theatre in Leicester. I found it very enjoyable and feel it did the play justice. It really emphasised the tension and mystery of the play.

For those who don’t know, An Inspector Calls is a play written by J. B. Priestley in 1945. The play was first performed in Russia (Moscow and Leningrad) in 1945, as no British theatres could have hosted the play at such ‘short notice’.

The play is set in 1912 in Brumley (an industrial city in the North Midlands). In the play, the Birling family (the main characters) are visited by an inspector who goes by “Inspector Goole”. 

The Birling family consists of Mr Birling (the father), Mrs Birling (the mother), Eric (the son), Sheila (the daughter) and Gerald (Sheila’s fiancé). As well as Edna, the maid, but she is mostly a background character.

They are a wealthy, upper-class family, with seemingly no problems! Mr Birling suspects he is going to get offered a big role, Sheila is getting married, Eric is becoming a man… what could be better!

But it all changes when the inspector introduces himself and says that he is working for the police and is trying to solve the case of a very recent suicide. The girl who died is called Eva but is known by other names as well.

The Inspector questions each of the family members one by one, putting them under pressure and making them reveal secrets that may just ruin their reputation…

I won’t say anymore or give any spoilers, you’ll just have to watch the play, but the mystery that unfolds is gripping.

I first read An Inspector Calls about a year ago in one of my English lessons, and I’m going to be studying it again soon for my GCSE. But seeing it wasn’t just for educational purposes… The play itself is amazing.

I haven’t seen anything by this particular cast, etc, but the director (Stephen Daldry) has previously earned a BAFTA for his skills and he did not disappoint with this one! (You may know him as the director of Billy Elliot.)

The imagery and metaphors throughout the play are subtle but add so much to the scenes at the same time. Like at the very start of the play, young children dressed in dirty clothes are trying to peak under the curtain and look into what it’s like in a ‘rich man’s world’.

The set was also amazing, it was a house and it opened up when the inspector arrived, representing them being vulnerable and out in the open. Or when things took a turn for the worst, the house tipped and everything crashed down and shattered (my favourite part), this could represent the breaking of the family relations and household. Lights flickered and flashed and the theatre was filled with the sound of things being destroyed, it really captured the chaos of the moment.

The only thing that went wrong during the play was at the beginning of the second scene, when the lighting on the stage stopped working properly so the show halted. The manager came on stage and said there was a problem with the lighting and that they’d be as quick as they could to fix it. 

After about five or ten minutes, the lighting was back to normal and they started the scene again. It was a quick and efficient recovery and the cast was professional by acting like nothing had happened.

It did break the atmosphere a little though as they were in the middle of acting out a high tension argument and everything just stopped. But it was forgotten about soon enough and the atmosphere was back to how it was.

So overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the play! I thought it was acted out very well and the artistic licence was used effectively in the fact that the subtle metaphors, etc, helped with the feeling of the scenes and really helped bring the play to life. 

I would definitely recommend it!