'An Inspector Calls' is an extremely famous play, long a staple of school English Literature syllabuses. However, for my GCSE course I was lumbered with other things, and so although I could name JB Priestley as the play’s author with barely a second thought, I knew nothing about its plot. Yes, there is a rather large hint in the title that an Inspector may be involved, and it's a good bet that he will get up to some inspectoring, but beyond that I had not a clue. I wasn't about to spoil it all by looking up what happens on Wikipedia, and so booking tickets became therefore a slightly risky business. Would it all end up a bit Agatha Christie-esque? (I saw 'The 39 Steps' a couple of years ago, and although mildly entertaining I wouldn't rush out to see anything similar.) As it turned out, I couldn't get cheap tickets for much else and so the decision was made for me. Luckily, 'An Inspector Calls' is hardly your standard murder mystery fare; in fact it's really rather good.The first thing to say about this revival of Stephen Daldry’s 1992 production is that it looks amazing. The atmosphere is wonderfully gloomy due to the liberal use of smoke, restrained use of lighting and the presence of drably-clothed street urchins. Not only that, but it rains! Yes, water really does come tumbling down, right there on the stage, so that the actors’ clothes get wet and mucky. Marvellous.
In stark contrast to this doom-laden greyness on the outside are the bright reds and golds adorning the rich family's house that occupies the bulk of the right-hand side of the stage. This house is quite a contraption; the walls swing open to reveal a gaudy dining room, a set of railings is magically transformed into a usable stairway. Its best trick is revealed about two thirds of the way in, and I won't give away the surprise, but suffice to say they must have got through rather a lot of crockery during the course of this run.
With a set like this the actors have to try pretty hard not to be upstaged by it, and fortunately by and large they succeed. The actor playing the Inspector was sometimes inaudible from our lofty position in the balcony, but otherwise his calm approach punctuated by flashes of rage worked well. The by turns haughty and hysterical Mrs Sybil Birling had a commanding presence, dominating even that of her fat and booming husband Arthur (a former Lord Mayor of Brumley, don't you know).
'An Inspector Calls' has an interesting parallel with the last play I saw at Wyndham's Theatre, 'Madame de Sade', in that the central character in each never appears on stage. In the latter play it is the Marquis de Sade who, despite being imprisoned far away, is the subject of all conversations; in the former it is a young working-class woman, Eva Smith, who cannot possibly appear as she killed herself earlier that day (or did she?). It is this piece of information that the inspector arrives at the Birling residence to divulge. Initially it appears to them to be irrelevant, but as he proceeds with his questioning the family members learn one by one that they are implicated in the sorry affair.
It is easy to see why this play is so popular with examination boards. In fact at times it feels as though the central themes of responsibility and common humanity are being shoved down the audience members’ throats. However, even if Priestley's socialist message is painfully obvious it is still very interesting to see the family members’ contrasting reactions to their implied guilt, and it makes us wonder how we ourselves would react in such a situation. Less obvious is the nature of the inspector himself. Is there something supernatural about him? Personally I would like to think not, but it is certainly an interesting question, and I have yet to come up with a workable alternative. But anyway, things get rather boring if we know all the answers, don't they?
Picture is of Sir Charles Wyndham, the founder of Wyndham's Theatre.
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