When Stephen Daldry's Inspector Calls opened at the National Theatre in 1992 it won a multitude of awards and rave reviews. Eighteen years later, having toured extensively around the UK, Australia and New York, it has ended up at the Wyndham's and is still going strong. Although it has had a run any Lloyd Webber musical would be proud of, it has not run out of steam. The mix of J B Priestly's poignant classic with Stephen Daldry's innovative direction and Ian MacNeil's set design has kept the play on a knife edge for the audience and a box office hit for its investors.
The play opens with the dramatic raked set of an out of scale Victorian mansion, high on stilts, with the action taking place in 1912. Inside the house, the Birling family are celebrating the engagement of their daughter Sheila to Gerald Croft. On the stage, and out on the street in Blitz London, Inspector Goole is trying to uncover the reasons why a young girl committed suicide and who was responsible.
The echoing music score, the voice of a radio announcer drifting out of an old wireless and the ringing from a red telephone box all add to the tension.
One by one, Inspector Goole accuses the Birling family of being the cause of this young woman's death. Was it the father (David Roper) who sacked her from his factory, the daughter (Marianne Oldham) who complained about the girl when she served her in a shop, the boyfriend (Timothy Watson) who took her in, the son (Robin Whiting) who got her pregnant, or the mother (Sandra Duncan) who didn't show her any charity.
On the night I went, Jeremy Spriggs, the understudy, had his moment of glory and stepped in as Inspector Goole, and was first class. He lead us through a stream of rocky emotions, from doubt to fear and back again as he interrogated each family member. The chilling thoughts of how a small action can snowball and lead to ruin is poignant, and it stays with long after you have left the theatre.
If you haven't already seen this play, catch it before it closes in March.
An Inspector Calls Wyndam's Theatre
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