276°
Posted 20 hours ago

An Inspector Calls and Other Plays (Penguin Modern Classics)

£9.9£99Clearance
ZTS2023's avatar
Shared by
ZTS2023
Joined in 2023
82
63

About this deal

The Inspector next interrogates Mrs. Birling, who remains icily resistant to accepting any responsibility. Eva Smith came to her, pregnant, to ask for help from a charity committee of which Mrs. Birling was chairperson. Mrs. Birling used her influence to have the committee refuse to help the girl. Mrs. Birling resists the Inspector’s questioning, eventually forcefully telling him that the father of the child is the one with whom the true responsibility rests. 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.

Priestley, J. B. (1947). An Inspector Calls: A Play in Three Acts (Firsted.). London: Heinemann. OCLC 59564726. After the war Priestley continued his writing, and his work invariably provoked thought, and his views were always expressed in his blunt Yorkshire style. An Inspector Calls cast". An Inspector Calls. Archived from the original on 8 September 2019 . Retrieved 5 February 2020. 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. In February 2015, filming began in Saltaire, West Yorkshire. [6] Although the exterior shots of the mill were filmed at Saltaire, the interior shots of the mill were filmed at Queen Street Mill on the outskirts of Burnley, Lancashire. A full-sized office was built in the middle of the Weaving Shed for this production and was dismantled once filming was completed.An Inspector Calls (lost television adaptation of play; 1948) - The Lost Media Wiki". lostmediawiki.com . Retrieved 16 September 2023. a b Priestley, J. B. (1947). Bezant, Tim (ed.). An Inspector Calls: A Play in Three Acts (1992ed.). London: Heinemann. pp.xi–xiv. ISBN 0-435-23282-7. If one leaves aside the fantasy/ science fiction premise, this play is rather insipid to read. But one can easily appreciate the power it would have had on stage when it was staged in 1937.

Singh, Anita (13 September 2015). "An Inspector Calls, BBC One, review: 'subtle as a sledgehammer' ". The Daily Telegraph. London . Retrieved 14 September 2015. Ocr tesseract 5.0.0-1-g862e Ocr_detected_lang en Ocr_detected_lang_conf 1.0000 Ocr_detected_script Latin Ocr_detected_script_conf 1.0000 Ocr_module_version 0.0.15 Ocr_parameters -l eng Old_pallet IA-NS-2000522 Openlibrary_edition History, to be worthy of the name, should bring us a stereoscopic view of man's life. Without that extra dimension, strangely poignant as well as vivid, it is flat and because it is flat, it is false. There are two patterns, endlessly being superimposed on one another. The first pattern is that of man reproducing himself, finding food and shelter, tilling the land, building cities, crossing the seas. It is the picture we understand now with ease, perhaps too easily. For the other pattern is still there, waiting to be interpreted. It is the record of man as a spiritual creature, with a whole world of unknown continents and strange seas, gardens of Paradise and cities lit with hell-fire, within the depths of his own soul. History that ignores the god and the altar is as false as history that could forget the sword and the wheel...' An Inspector Calls at Novello Theatre and others 2009-2010". www.abouttheartists.com . Retrieved 20 January 2023.

Summary

And I tell you that the time will soon come when, if men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish. Good night." J.B.Priestley's fine plays, written & produced for the theatres of the English-speaking world, either side of the Second World War, reflected the parlous state of mind that he found in many of his family, friends & professional acquaintances, partly the effect of the horrific Great War with its disturbing, emotional & social aftermath. The domestic settings of many of his best plays are banal & middle-class, but Priestley had a wonderful talent for angry dialogues that delved deeply into smug assumptions about the class-conscious world of England in those years of economic purgatory & political confusion. The Linden Tree', a Chekhov-like study of family relationships, finds the Lindens divided : Professor Linden at sixty-five could retire but is dedicated to teaching at a run-down provincial university. But his wife and rich son Rex have other ideas. . .

Reason one is that there is nothing difficult about the play. It is not expressionistic or experimental, nor is it abstract or symbolic – like Music at Night or Johnson Over Jordan. It is a straightforward three-act play where the action is continuous and the pace brisk. Priestley’s language is also not difficult. His dialogue is composed of what he himself called ‘that familiar flat idiom’.The son of Sir George and Lady Croft of Crofts Limited, a competitor of Birling and Company, he is at the Birling residence to celebrate his recent engagement to Sheila. Gerald's revealed affair with Eva puts an end to the relationship, though Sheila commends him for his truthfulness and for his initial compassion towards the girl. Gerald believes that Goole is not a police inspector, that the family may not all be referring to the same woman, and that there may not be a body. Initially, he appears to be correct and does not think the Birlings have anything to feel ashamed of or worry about. He seems excited at the prospect of unmasking the "false" Inspector and seems almost desperate for others to believe him. Wollaston, Sam (14 September 2015). "An Inspector Calls; This Is England '90 review: a message from a century ago, and friends appear from decades ago". The Guardian. London . Retrieved 15 September 2015. Literally, this is the feeling of deja vu: where you know that you have never been in a place or situation before, but still it all seems all too familiar. Reincarnation and cyclic time all have been used as explanations for this phenomenon which modern science sees as an anomaly of memory. In the hands of a gifted writer, it makes for the premise of an intriguing play. David Thewlis. "David Thewlis to lead cast of BBC One's adaptation of JB Priestley's An Inspector Calls - Media Centre". BBC . Retrieved 23 September 2015.

Asda Great Deal

Free UK shipping. 15 day free returns.
Community Updates
*So you can easily identify outgoing links on our site, we've marked them with an "*" symbol. Links on our site are monetised, but this never affects which deals get posted. Find more info in our FAQs and About Us page.
New Comment