Joined in 2023 
82 
63 About this deal
Written at the end of the Second World War and set before the First, Bradford playwright Priestley’s thriller opens with the mysterious Inspector Goole calling unexpectedly on the prosperous Birling family home. Whereupon their peaceful family dinner party is shattered by his investigations into the suicide of a young, discarded, pregnant factory girl. A scene of devastation: Brian MacNeil’s over-sized doll’s house design for An Inspector Calls, on tour at York Theatre Royal in 2018 STEPHEN Daldry’s award-garlanded reimagining of J B Priestley’s haunting family drama An Inspector Calls will return to its York roots next year. George Rowlands’ theatre credits include Parliament Square at The Unicorn Theatre, The Boy With The Bee Jar at The Hope Theatre and Macbeth with Quarter Too Ensemble. Priestley shows that Gerald, Sheila’s fiancé, also has some sense of justice. When he meets Eva Smith (as Daisy Renton) in the Palace Theatre bar, he rescues her from the hands of the lecherous Alderman Meggarty who ‘had wedged her into a corner’. The verb ‘wedged’ and the noun ‘corner’ illustrate her helplessness. Nonetheless, Gerald has a hand in Eva’s downfall too, because he ends his affair with her when it suits him. His deception is also unfair to Sheila. Evlyne: “If I had to be someone out of all the characters, it would definitely be the inspector, because I’m obsessed with crime documentaries and serial killers, everything to do with murder, unsolved murder, unsolved mysteries, death row, all of that! I’ve pretty much seen everything and I re-watch it to go to sleep.”
The Inspector has given the characters a second chance to change the way they will treat people like Eva Smith. It’s been over four years since I last watched Stephen Daldry’s iconic staging of An Inspector Calls, and I continue to find it an enthralling piece of theatre. The fact that this recent performance withstood the ambient noise of several hundred schoolchildren within the creaky confines of York’s Grand Opera House only serves to underline how compelling this production is. But all they really know is that they behaved badly to someone like her, one of ‘the millions and millions of Eva Smiths’ – that is, someone who is poor and has no power. My mum advised me to go and see a youth company at the weekends, so I did that, and I didn’t realise how natural it was to act as it is to live in the real world. I was a lot freer. We never meet Eva Smith, and Inspector Goole is the only one who knows what happens to her. He controls when the characters see Eva Smith’s photo, so no two characters see the photograph at the same time. Perhaps they do not even see the same photo.In the 30-years since its first performance at the National Theatre in 1992, Stephen Daldry’s production of An Inspector Calls has won a total of 19 major awards, including four Tony Awards and three Olivier Awards, and has played to more than 5 million theatregoers worldwide. An Inspector Calls is the most internationally-lauded production in the National Theatre’s history. I like storytelling and I like the creative and artistic aspect of it. With this production, it has enabled that part of acting, and it’s been a really good creative process.” Evlyne Oyedokun’s Sheila Birling and Simon Cotton’s Gerald Croft in the rehearsal room for An Inspector Calls. Picture: Mark Douet George: At the end of the day, at its centre it’s a play about somebody in distress, and that doesn’t get old, does it? I think at different points in time, when we’ve put it on over the last 30 years, it’s been relevant. And this time around I think it’s more relevant than ever because of what’s going on in terms of the strike action and housing crisis.”
The Inspector turns his attention to Mrs Birling, a patron of a charity that helps women in difficult situations, which Daisy (who was by then pregnant and destitute) had turned to for help. Daisy introduced herself as Mrs Birling, which offended the real Mrs Birling. Daisy then revealed that she had a new name, Alice Grey. Alice explained that the father of her child was an immature alcoholic who could not act as a father yet and could not support her. Mrs Birling, however, persuaded the committee to deny her a grant, believing that Daisy had been irresponsible and suggested that she find the father, despite Daisy repeating that he wouldn’t be of any use. Despite vigorous cross-examination from the inspector, she denies any wrongdoing. Goole then plays his final card, forcing Mrs Birling to lay the blame on the 'drunken young man' who got Smith pregnant. It slowly dawns on the family, except Mrs Birling, that Eric is the young man involved. Evlyne: “Well, the fact that is has three timelines helps. It’s set across three timelines – you’ve got 1912, which is where the play is set; then you’ve got the future, which is the Blitz, 1945, and then you’ve also got the current now, 2022.When on tour, are there any essentials to have in your dressing room or top tips for making yourself feel at home in each city? JB Priestley’s brilliantly constructed masterpiece powerfully dramatises the dangers of casual capitalism’s hypocrisy. Stephen Daldry’s epic production highlights the play’s enduring relevance. Hailed as the theatrical event of its generation, winning more awards than any other production in history, An Inspector Calls has thrilled more than 4 million people worldwide.
Evlyne: “Oh gosh! With me, I actually didn’t ever want to be an actor, it happened by accident. From a young age I was struggling with people and I never really spoke – I was pretty much mute to people I didn’t really know. PW Productions are delighted to announce the full cast for the 30 th Anniversary UK and Ireland Tour of Stephen Daldry’s seminal production of JB Priestley’s classic thriller AN INSPECTOR CALLS which comes to York Opera House on the 7 th until 11 th February 2023. Priestley presents Sybil Birling as a snobbish and unkind woman. She feels herself to be above other people who are not in the same class as she is, and when the Inspector arrives she treats him like an inferior. Aisling Walsh to direct Priestley classic for BBC". Raidió Teilifís Éireann. 30 January 2015. Archived from the original on 2 April 2015 . Retrieved 9 March 2015.You might think Mrs Birling would think hard about what she has done and Eric’s problems, but when she speaks next she just blames Eric. She is more concerned with avoiding a scandal, and this tell us that despite everything that has happened she is not willing to learn from the Inspector and change. Priestley was interested in the idea of time, and wrote several plays, such as ‘Dangerous Corner’ (1932), that included the theme of time. In ‘An Inspector Calls’ he explores the idea that time could repeat itself so that events happen again.
Great Deal 
New Comment