An Inspector Calls

In 1912 an industrialist family is celebrating their daughter's engagement. During dinner the doorbell rings: an inspector has come to ask about a young woman who died that day. He shows each of them the same photograph in turn and each admits to knowing her. Nobody killed her directly; each of them closed a door. The subject is not the death but responsibility disappearing by division. The father sacked her, the daughter complained about her in a shop, the fiancé had an affair and left, the mother refused her application for help. None of them considers themselves guilty and together they were sufficient. The form keeps the play's structure: one night, one house, an interrogation proceeding in turn. This adaptation also leaves the stage; the woman's story is shown in flashback and what the play only describes is here made visible. The source is J. B. Priestley's play, written in 1945. The text is set in 1912 but was written by a man who had seen two wars, and the warning at the end reads through that. The play is on the school curriculum in Britain and this television version is built for viewers who do not know it as well. David Thewlis plays the inspector, Ken Stott the father and Miranda Richardson the mother. Aisling Walsh directs. Who it is for: viewers who like adaptations of plays and questions of social morality. Who it is not for: anyone expecting surprise; the ending of the text is very widely known and its effect rested largely on not knowing.