An Inspector Calls and Other Plays (Penguin Modern Classics)

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A large number of scenes were also filmed at Scampston Hall, near Malton, and in the market town of Malton. [ citation needed] The exterior is Attingham House. [ citation needed] An Inspector Calls cast". An Inspector Calls. Archived from the original on 8 September 2019 . Retrieved 5 February 2020. A policeman interrupts a rich family's dinner to question them about the suicide of a young working-class girl. As their guilty secrets are gradually revealed over the course of the evening, 'An Inspector Calls', J. B. Priestley's most famous play, shows us the terrible consequences of poverty and inequality. The other powerful plays in this collection - 'Time and the Conways', 'I Have Been Here Before' and 'The Linden Tree' - explore time, fate, free will and the effects of war.

I Have Been Here Before - Probably my least favourite in the collection, but was very interesting to have contemporary physical theory on time and recurrence incorporated. It’s (unsurprisingly) a bit out of left field, but still much to be taken away from it. His prolific output continued right up to his final years, and to the end he remained the great literary all-rounder. His favourite among his books was for many years the novel Bright Day, though he later said he had come to prefer The Image Men. He is the embodiment of the self-centred upper classes. Arthur Birling is an arrogant and dismissive character used by Priestley as a dramatic vehicle to criticise capitalism, the arrogance of the upper classes, and the ignorance of the elder generations.

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When the inspector visits the Birling's house she says "an Inspector's called." She is asked to stay up late during the play by Mrs Birling to make tea for the Birling family. The young girl who allegorically represents the working class in a capitalist society; she doesn't have any lines in the play. All Birling characters behaved in ways that completely altered her life for the worst, culminating in her suicide by drinking some strong disinfectant. The inspector reads her diary before interrogating the Birlings. She is described as being young and pretty, with dark eyes. She also changes her name from Eva Smith to Daisy Renton.

Dr. Jean here is a rehash of Madge in the first play, and Dinah is Carol. Marion is a more aggressive Hazel and we can find shades of Robin in Rex. For this reason, reading the plays in succession, it felt repetitive to me - maybe it's different on stage, however. Saltaire is filming location for TV adaptation of An Inspector Calls". Telegraph & Argus. 20 February 2015 . Retrieved 9 March 2015. The publication of English Journey in 1934 emphasised Priestley's concern for social problems and the welfare of ordinary people.One evening in the spring of 1912, the Birlings are celebrating their daughter Sheila’s engagement to Gerald Croft, who is also present. Husband and wife Arthur and Sybil Birling, along with their son Eric, are pleased with themselves. Birling toasts the happy couple, and Gerald presents Sheila with a ring which absolutely delights her. The programme was watched by nearly six million viewers. [7] For The Daily Telegraph, Anita Singh was generally positive, writing that the programme was 'as good an adaptation as it could be' and praising Helen Edmundson for her 'decent job of expanding the drama'. [8] Sam: Yes, I can't grumble at all. I have never made much out o' this place, but I've had all I want. I'd ask for naught better - If I had my time over again.

Nathan, George Jean (1948). "An Inspector Calls". The Theatre Book of the Year: A Record and an Interpretation. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. pp.113–115. J.B. Priestley's An Inspector Calls and Other Plays collects four groundbreaking works by a master playwright in Penguin Modern Classics. There are four plays in this book and the first three of them are superb. The fourth is good but to be honest I also found it a bit boring. Why? For the simple reason that the first three have metaphysical, supernatural, moral, social and paradoxical elements. The fourth only has the moral and social input. But let's not be too harsh on 'The Linden Tree'. Certainly the characters in the play are very engaging and the ending is excellent, namely the hint of the resurgence of the spirit of a great professor who has almost, but not quite, been crushed by circumstances outside his control.The following text, by Dr John Baxendale, is a programme essay for a production Of An Inspector Calls at the Canadian Shaw Festival, 2008.

An Inspector Calls, written at a time when society was undergoing sweeping transformations, has been produced as a successful film, and enjoyed repeated revivals since it was first produced in 1946. While holding its audience with the gripping tension of a detective thriller, it is also a philosophical play about social conscience and the crumbling of middle class values. This could be any drawing room comedy of the fifties: pleasant and mediocre. But Priestly expertly wrong-foots us by breaking the scene in-between and taking nineteen years forward in time in the second act. It's once again Kay's birthday party, this time the fortieth, but the occasion is far from pleasant: the Conways have lost their wealth, relationships have formed and broken down, and most of the family (except Alan) have become disillusioned and embittered. The euphoria of the roaring twenties have given way to the despondency of the forties, and a second war is looming on the horizon. The film is set in 1912 and follows the events of a single evening on which the wealthy Birling family is holding a dinner party to celebrate the engagement of their daughter. The festivities are interrupted by a visit from what is taken to be a policeman, Inspector Goole, who is investigating the recent suicide of a local young woman. Goole’s interrogations of each member of the dinner party make it clear that all of them have contributed to the tragedy through individually unjust, selfish or exploitative behaviour. The "Inspector" leaves the subdued group with a warning that human beings have shared responsibility for each other and that this lesson will soon be taught "in fire and blood and anguish" — an apparent reference to the outbreak of World War I two years later. The fact that his presence combines 'massiveness' with 'purposefulness' suggests that the Inspector would be a very imposing figure. in Schools Catalogue 2023–24, 3700 in Education Catalogue 2023–24 and 499 in UK Teen Autumn 2023 FormatGale, Maggie (2004). "Theatre and drama between the wars". In Nicholls, Peter; Marcus, Laura (eds.). The Cambridge history of twentieth-century English literature. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. p.328. ISBN 0-521-82077-4. the middle class family was at the centre of much of Priestley's work ... most clearly perhaps in 'An Inspector Calls'. Time and the Conways - Early twentieth-century England’s answer to Little Women. Melancholic and moody. You can see where a lot of the plot points are going to go in the third act but it doesn’t make it any less enjoyable to see play out.