Feedback:

"I came to see ... 'An Inspector Calls' at the Mumford Theatre, and very much enjoyed the performance. I was impressed by your high production values and the fact that the show was a sell out success. I especially enjoyed Adam Kay's foppish young dandy. I also thought the skirting board standing for the walls were a nice touch. I think you definitely achieved the company aim of making the play accessible to a GCSE and A-level audience; the night I visited there were a number of foreign students for whom English was not their first language, who were riveted by the production. And as someone whose GCSEs are a long way behind him I enjoyed it too."
Theatre Agent

"I really enjoyed this afternoon ... and, more to the point, so did that potentially rowdy audience. Their response at the end was genuine. Some very capable acting, you'd contrived strong focus moments and made everything so clear."
Head of English

"Superb acting and very moving. Please continue your excellent work, bringing us classics that make us think. "
Theatregoer

Production notes:

JB Priestley (1894-1984) wrote this play just after the end of the Second World War as Britain was about to move into a new age of socialism. But, significantly, he sets about it just before the First World War, flagging - with all the benefits of hindsight - the warning signs society failed to heed (or indeed has done in the sixty years since).

It's a play about individual and, by extension, communal responsibility. Mr and Mrs Birling - and to a lesser extent Gerald Croft - appear to learn nothing from the curious Inspector's lesson. They refuse to accept responsibility for anyone beyond their inner circle and it is surely this steadfast refusal which brings on the 'real' inspector's impending visit at the play's close.

In the younger Birlings, however, Priestley offers a window of hope. Both Eric and Sheila in their own way grasp the essence of the Inspector's visit and are ashamed of themselves and their parents. Perhaps, Priestley hopes, future generations might take responsibility after all. As the Inspector says, "We have to share something. If there's nothing else, we'll have to share our guilt."

Each act is tightly and carefully constructed, which is one of Priestley's hallmarks as a dramatist, along with his propensity to play with the concepts of time. Character and setting are quickly established as the Birlings' world closes in on them and they unwittingly participate in a premonition of disaster.

With this production we have stayed faithful to the play's original setting, though it could, with a little tweaking, just as easily be set in Tony Blair's Britain. But we have resisted the temptation to do anything fancy and portray it for what it is; provocative and questioning, distancing yet engaging, and - not least - a classic thriller which never seems to date.

Sally Woodcock

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