An inspector calls

Foto: Ralf Eppink

On a summer evening in 1912 in Brumley, an English manufacturing town, the wealthy factory owner and politician Arthur Birling and his wife Sybil are celebrating the engagement of their daughter Sheila to a rival industrialist’s son, Gerald Croft. The Birlings’ son Eric, whose drinking problem the family discreetly ignores, is also at the family gathering. After dinner Arthur lectures them on the importance of self-reliance and looking after your own interests and talks of ¬¬¬¬the peaceful and prosperous future that awaits the couple. The seemingly cosy evening is interrupted by the arrival of a man calling himself Inspector Goole, who says he is investigating the death of a young woman who took her own life. Who is to blame for her death?
“An Inspector Calls” is a timeless classic of English theatre. It is not only a bitter satire studded with criticism of capitalism, but also an existentialist drama and a gripping crime story. The crimes committed here, however, are not those of a typical murder mystery but are much more subtle and enigmatic…