'An Inspector Calls' at the Richmond Theatre: Review

by Wilf Brown

On the 27th of April, I attended “An Inspector Calls” by J.B. Priestley at the Richmond Theatre in London. Overall, I thought that the play was entertaining, but took too much of an alternative approach to staging and certain aspects of the characters' personalities, especially in contrast to the original play that I have been studying in English this year. 

In spite of that overview, I believe that the acting was of a good quality and that all the leading roles were performed to a high standard. However, the actor’s portrayal of Inspector Goole had some aspects that I thought did not work. For example, throughout the original play, Goole keeps his cool and is in control of the other characters for the duration of Priestley's play. He also cuts in front of the other characters, and makes it near impossible to do the same to him. However, in this adaptation of the play he shouts angrily, and allows for the Birling family and Gerald Croft to intercept and interrupt his sentences, which in my opinion partially destroyed his character and for what he stands. 

The stage of the play was definitely something that I did not expect, especially after reading the play myself. In the original play, it is set in the Birling’s dining room, and stays in that room for the entire production. But, in this version, the stage has the house in the background and a common street was in front of it, where the actors did most of their acting. The actors were able to enter and exit the house as well, by climbing down stairs. I thought that it was rather confusing to have the stage like that as the actor’s constant movement became the focus rather than portraying the claustrophobic confrontations and confessions which took place in the dining room in Priestley’s original play. In addition, at the end of the play, the house tilted around 30 degrees, which in my opinion was unnecessary and did not add anything major to the play or scene (other than a sense of misplaced drama). 

To conclude, this adaptation of An Inspector Calls was original and enjoyable but I personally prefer the primary version written in 1945. It had elements that could be considered well-worked and clever or even better than the original play, but in general, I believe the majority of the adaptations served to distract from the purpose of the original play.