An Inspector Calls

Thursday, 6th December 2007

A gifted cast presented J.B. Priestley?s ?An Inspector Calls? and secured the rapt and delighted attention of audiences in the Joyce King Theatre. Wealth gives Mr and Mrs Birling a Titanic complacency, which the compellingly authoritative Inspector Goole sinks by revealing the hypocrisy and selfishness it conceals. Goole pushes the parents and Gerald to perdition whilst awakening the consciences of the younger generation of Birlings. It would be invidious to single outindividual performances. No-one in the audience will forget the clashes between Mrs Birling, (Sasha Stock), the Inspector, (Tania Margolin) and Sheila, (Sophie Lobl), nor the tensions in the relationships between Mr Birling, (Joshua Cainer) and Eric, (Julian Wogman), and Gerald Croft, (Jacob Tucker), and Sheila, his fiancée. Without in any way reducing the power of the play?s indictment of the hard-headed businessman?s insensitivity and self-righteousness, Ms Frank?s production extracted rich humour from the substitution of respectability for morality in pre-First World War English life.