An Inspector Calls – come to be bamboozled, prepare to be challenged (Grand Opera House until Saturday 19 October)

Before An Inspector Calls begins, the red curtains stretching across the stage are sitting at a jaunty angle. A hint about the out of kilter nature of the lives that are about to unravel on stage. It’s 1912, and an air raid siren wails while rain falls. But those irritations don’t interfere with the postprandial chat of the Birlings as they celebrate daughter Sheila’s betrothal to Gerald Croft.

Ian MacNeil’s set plays with scale and perspective, putting the oversized family in a cramped birdcage of a shrunken dolls house that has been elevated six feet above contradiction. The Birlings’ initial conversation is heard but not seen: it’s important that we get an honest measure of their characters and motivations before judging their posh dress and upper middle class deportment. The maid Edna remains on the ground, technically outside the house, never ascending to the Birling’s level, her mostly silent presence a constant reminder of the us and them classism writ large in J. B. Priestly’s script.

Edna announces the arrival of Police Inspector Goole. His impertinent questioning in connection with the death of a young woman, Eva Smith, gradually reveals the prosperous family’s communal complicity in the circumstances leading up to the tragedy. As the household literally and figuratively collapses, can the Birling family come to terms with their behaviour and take the rap for their unpleasant actions?

Son Eric (George Rowlands) comes across at first as unfiltered and an original thinker before we find out about his much darker, coercive side. Older sister Sheila (a bravura performance from Leona Allen) has a sharp temper in public but is eager to please in private at home, her dialogue at times used to unsubtly reinforce Priestly’s summation of each scene in case the audience were in any doubt. Father Arthur (Jeffrey Harmer) is a bully who has become too big for his britches and craves civic recognition, while his well-to-do wife Sybil (Jackie Morrison) assumes moral superiority over everyone. Fiancé Gerald (Tom Chapman) is a cad, though an honest one right up until the point he constructs a giant Get Out of Jail Free Card for his future in-laws. Inspector Goole (Tim Treloar) drops in like a bomb on a short fuse, bringing the family down to his level, needling each member into admissions of guilt and culpability until they are left lying on the floor, shadows of their former glorious selves.

Priestly – through Goole – lectures the audience about power imbalances, classism, and the danger of letting the capitalists walk over the workers. Premiered in 1945 – in Russia of all places – An Inspector Call predates George Orwell’s Nineteen Eight-Four but deals with the management and manipulation of truth (albeit more mildly mannered). Director Stephen Daldry makes Treloar deliver an almost Messiah-like sermon straight out to the stalls, with Rick Fisher’s atmospheric lighting removed for fullest effect. Despite all this effort, I’m not sure the feeling of personal shame and responsibility quite landed on the Grand Opera House audience.

The sleight of hand at play throughout most of the play is good fodder for reviewers who are also fact checkers. Who do we believe? How do we come to make judgements?

“I don’t believe it. I won’t believe it.” sounds like the rantings of an impetuous child … or a modern political candidate. But it’s the part of the modern arsenal of denying uncomfortable facts, doubling down on lies, diverting attention, and manufacturing elaborate explanations to prove why what seems intuitively obvious might not be demonstrably reliable.

And while Priestly’s critique of capitalism has no room for a critique of socialism (or communism), he asks good questions. Who do we protect? Ourselves or others? Do the rich inevitably build their version of morality around not getting caught doing the bad things they’ve done? Do the working class look on like sinless witnesses of the rich people’s depravity without any means of intervention? (That last question might not be one that Priestly intended to pose.)

The twist in the final minute is almost undermined by the sheer amount of doubt that has been spread in the preceding 45 minutes. It’s a slightly disappointing ending to an otherwise tightly written and engagingly staged play that thankfully doesn’t solely rely on a big reveal like other touring mystery plays.

An Inspector Calls continues its run at the Grand Opera House until Saturday 19 October. There’s no interval so empty your bladder. And please silence your mobiles. They didn’t exist in 1912. And a shout out to the community cast who loiter in later scenes and remain upright for the bows at the end.

Photo credit: Mark Douet

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