Another Inspector Calls
A verbatim transcript of the Craphampton Thespian Society’s first-night performance of Priestley’s famous classic, as relived in a nightmare by the embittered producer
ACT ONE
(The dining room of a large farmhouse in the Midlands, belonging to a prosperous farmer. The general effect is of odd bits of Victoriana thrown together to look Edwardian, with a few strips of plastic moulding painted to resemble wood glued to the doorframe. At rise of curtain, the four BIRLINGS and GERALD are seated round a wallpapering table with a red cloth draped over it. ARTHUR BIRLING sits at one end, surreptitiously trying to gum back on the upstage side of his moustache which has come adrift. His wife SYBIL is rather out of breath having only just finished sewing lace onto the women’s blouses. SHEILA is a pretty girl in her twenties, very pleased with life in general and with having landed a part in which she can pretend to be 25 years younger than her actual age in particular. GERALD is a handsome, urbane young man about town with a Ronnie Kray haircut. ERIC is legless. At the moment they are all pretending to have had a good dinner, and are uneasily waiting for the Elgar to end because they’ve run out of small talk. In the nick of time EDNA the maid deposits a decanter)
BIRLING: Giving us t’port, Edna? That’s reet gradely, lass.
MRS B: Arthur – you’re not supposed to say such things.
BIRLING: Oh, sorry, my dear. Giving us t’Ribena, Edna? Champion.
MRS B: All right, Edna. I’ll ring when we want to hear the dialect record again, probably around the bottom of page two at this rate.
(EDNA exits with champagne glasses, table cloth, tray, GERALD’s phone number, etc)
BIRLING: You ought to like this stuff, Gerald. As a matter of fact –
GERALD: I couldn’t agree more, sir.
BIRLING: Let me finish, let me finish. What I was going to say was –
SHEILA: Are you having one, Mummy?
MRS B: No dear, it’s just the way I’m sitting.
ERIC: (Suddenly guffaws).
BIRLING: Now, what’s t’joke?
ERIC: I don’t know really. The script just says ‘Eric suddenly guffaws’.
SHEILA: You’re pissed.
MRS B: Sheila! What an expression! Eric’s only a boy, he doesn’t ‘get pissed’ as you call it. Gerald, you know him, and you’re a handsome urbane man about town.
GERLAD: Actually, y’know, I’m afraid he does, Mrs Birling. Absolutely rat-arsed. I don’t pretend to know much about it of course.
SHEILA: I should think not, Gerald. I’d hate you to know all about getting rat-arsed, like one of these broken-down gout-ridden old drunks.
ERIC: I’m not a broken-down gout-ridden old drunk.
SHEILA: No, but Daddy is.
(General hilarity)
BIRLING: Anyway, as I was saying –
MRS B: Arthur –
BIRLING: (Exasperated) What is it now, Sybil?
MRS B: What about this famous toast of yours?
BIRLING: Thank you, my dear, I’ve been trying to get it out for t’last ten minutes. (Clears throat, climbs laboriously to his feet, checks script) Well Gerald –
GERALD: Hear hear!
ERIC: Steady the Buffs!
MRS B: Gerald and Sheila! (ALL drink) Now Arthur, if you’ve got no more to say –
(ALL rise)
BIRLING: (Heavily) I just want to say this. (ALL sit) Are you listening, Sheila?
SHEILA: No actually, Daddy. I haven’t had a drink yet. When do I drink?
MRS B: Sheila, don’t tell me you’re turning into a booze-soaked derelict too?
GERALD: Well, perhaps this will help to stop it. (Gives her a card)
SHEILA: Oh it’s wonderful! Look, Mummy! Six months’ honorary membership of Alcoholics Anonymous!
MRS B: That was very clever, Gerald. It came just at the right moment too.
BIRLING: (Soldiering grimly on) What I was going to say was, I’m de –
MRS B: Yes of course, dear. Well, don’t keep Gerald in here too long.
(Exit MRS B, SHEILA and ERIC. BIRLING shouts after them down the corridor)
BIRLING: I’m delighted about t’bloody engagement! (Slams door. Looks moodily at GERALD. Regains composure) Smutty video, Gerald?
GERALD: No thanks. Can’t really enjoy them.
BIRLING: You don’t know what you’re missing. I like a good smutty video.
GERALD: I’m sure you’re absolutely right, sir.
(They both laugh hysterically. Enter ERIC)
ERIC: Started telling dirty stories?
BIRLING: No, but as it’s a special occasion you can have another snort of coke if you like.
ERIC: Awesome, squire. (Enthusiastically takes out cocaine and snorts some)
(Enter EDNA)
EDNA: Please sir, an inspector’s called.
BIRLING: Called what? (He rocks with mirth, nudging GERALD)
GERALD: God, you’re witty, sir. Not related to Max Bygraves are you?
EDNA: He says his name’s Inspector Goolie, from the RSPCA.
BIRLING: You’d better show him in. (To GERALD) I’m still on t’board of pig breeders. Probably something about a trough.
GERALD: Sure to be. I mean, let’s face it, sir, you’re so utterly transplendent it couldn’t possibly be anything else could it?
(Enter the INSPECTOR. He wears a tweed suit, brown shoes, and a crash helmet. He has a disconcerting habit of moving his lips while actually speaking)
INSP: Mr Birling?
ERIC: Yes? (Suddenly guffaws)
BIRLING: You’ve had enough of that coke, Eric. Try pot in yon sugar bowl. Now, what can I do for thee, Inspector?
INSP: I’m a farm inspector, Mr Birling. Two hours ago a young sheep died at the vet’s after swallowing a lot of strong disinfectant. Burnt her insides out of course.
ERIC: My God!
BIRLING: Just keep quiet, Eric, and don’t get excited.
ERIC: But Dad, someone’s nicked all the pot.
GERALD: That’s OK, Eric, I’ve got some here.
ERIC: Oh, right on, man.
(They proceed to roll a joint together)
INSP: As I was saying, this sheep was in great agony. (Referring to a small notebook) She had a seared oesophagus, multiple burns of the thorax, major immolation of the stomach lining –
BIRLING: Yes yes, horrible business, but I –
INSP: (Remorselessly) – massive scorching of the rumen, catastrophic meltdown of the sigmoid colon, while as for her lower intestine and the – what do you call those things?
BIRLING: Rectum?
INSP: Yes, buggered ’em up completely in fact.
BIRLING: What can I do for you, Inspector?
INSP: Oh yes. Sorry, I just enjoy talking about it. Like a lot of these young ewes who get into trouble she’d used more than one name, but her original name – her real name – was Flossie.
BIRLING: (Thoughtfully) Flossie? Don’t know her.
INSP: Don’t seem to know much about anything, do you, Mr Birling?
BIRLING: Now look here, Inspector –
INSP: No, you look here, Mr Birling. Perhaps this hoofprint will jog your memory.
(He shows hoofprint to BIRLING. GERALD and ERIC fight each other to catch a glimpse of it, but the INSPECTOR fends them off and they proceed to roll about the floor, grappling and grunting)
INSP: I think you remember Flossie now don’t you, Mr Birling?
BIRLING: Aye, happen I do. I had to chuck her off farm two year ago for leading flocks on hunger strike.
GERALD: (Still fighting ERIC on the floor) Look here sir, wouldn’t you rather I was out of this?
BIRLING: I don’t mind you being here, Gerald. It’s a long time since I had such a slimy little crawler as you under my roof.
ERIC: (Suddenly guffaws)
GERALD: Now what is it?
ERIC: You just got my funny bone. (They continue fighting)
INSP: What was this hunger strike about, Mr Birling?
BIRLING: Well, flocks were averaging about twenty-two point six pound of grass a week and they wanted rate raised to twenty-five pound a week.
ERIC: So they took all the grass? The thieving little –
BIRLING: No they didn’t. I refused demands. This Flossie was ringleader so she had t’go.
INSP: She had to what?
BIRLING: T’go.
INSP: Bless you.
BIRLING: You’re welcome.
GERALD: You couldn’t have done anything else, sir.
ERIC: He could. He could have had her slaughtered for lunch, I’m partial to a bit of lamb with mint sauce.
(Enter SHEILA. The boys stop fighting and get up)
SHEILA: What’s all this about mint sauce?
BIRLING: Be quiet, Sheila. (They all stare at him) Oh, sorry. Got that wrong.
INSP: I’m a farm inspector, Miss Birling. Two hours ago a young sheep died at the vet’s after swallowing a lot of strong disinfectant. Burnt her insides out of course. She had a sauté’d epiglotis, braised innards, more roasted giblets than you could shake a stick at –
SHEILA: Oh – horrible, horrible!
INSP: Oh I don’t know. Anyway, here’s a photograph of her hoofprint.
(INSPECTOR shows photo to SHEILA. She recognizes it with a little cry, gives a half-stifled sob, chokes, coughs, hiccups, breaks wind three times, and runs to the door. But she can’t get out because it’s stuck. As she tugs at it, GERALD crosses to INSPECTOR)
GERALD: I’d like to look at that photograph now, Inspector.
ERIC: So would I.
GERALD: I asked first.
ERIC: I live here, you’re only a guest.
(They start rolling around the floor fighting again. SHEILA has collapsed exhausted, still hanging onto the door handle)
INSP: I think you remember Flossie now don’t you, Miss Birling?
SHEILA: Yes. She went to work behind the counter in Woolworth’s after daddy had her thrown off the farm. I’d gone in to try something on – a beautiful Shetland wool jumper. But I looked silly in the thing. And then this sheep – Flossie – held it up as if she was wearing it. And it just suited her. She was a very pretty sheep too – big dark eyes and soft white wool. I couldn’t feel sorry for her.
INSP: In fact you were jealous of her.
SHEILA: That’s right. So I set my dog Nipper on her, and he bit one of her legs off. (Starts tugging at the door again) Oh why did this have to happen?
GERALD: Maybe somebody forgot to oil the hinges.
SHEILA: Oh shut up, Gerald. I’m acting all dramatic and harrowed and now you’re trying to spoil it with your stupid jokes.
GERALD: Well, I never said I wouldn’t. I don’t see why – (Pause. Silence. They all look uneasily at one another) Someone’s supposed to cut in there.
INSP: (Suddenly) Oh yes. So Flossie lost her job on this farm because the strike failed and anyway none of the animals were numerate enough to count the votes in the ballot. She was chucked out of another job because Miss Birling here had her dog rip one of her legs off. Now, out of work, lonely, half-starved, with only three legs left, she had to try something else. So first she changed her name to – Blossom.
GERALD: (Startled) What?
INSP: I said ‘So first she changed her name to – Blossom.’
GERALD: D’you mind if I shoot myself in the head, Sheila? (Whips out a gun)
BIRLING: Drop that! (He pounces on him. They roll about the floor, struggling with the gun)
SHEILA: Oh – horrible, horrible.
BIRLING: Be quiet, Sheila.
INSP: Dead on a slab, singed gizzard, etc.
ERIC: (Suddenly guffaws)
(The INSPECTOR starts pocketing the silver. Enter MRS BIRLING. She stares at them ALL, astounded.)
MRS B: Well, I never heard such a –
END OF ACT ONE
ACT TWO
(The same)
MRS B: (Cont’d) – kerfuffle in all my days. (They ALL sort themselves out sheepishly. MRS BIRLING sails regally over to the INSPECTOR) Good evening, Inspector. I’m Mrs Birling.
INSP: I know. I’ve seen you at rehearsals.
ERIC: (Suddenly guffaws)
MRS B: Now what is it, Eric?
ERIC: Sorry, that should have been Sheila.
SHEILA: Oh yes. (Gives short hysterical laugh)
BIRLING: Be quiet, Sheila.
MRS B: Don’t be disgusting.
GERALD: I couldn’t agree more, Mr Birling.
INSP: I was telling you about this sheep’s casseroled tripes –
SHEILA: Oh – horrible, horrible!
BIRLING: Be quiet, Sheila.
ERIC: (Suddenly guffaws)
(Silence)
MRS B: Where were we?
INSP: Oh, I’ll do it. Mr Croft, when did you first get to know Blossom?
GERALD: Where did you get the idea that I did know her?
INSP: As soon as I mentioned the name Blossom you gave yourself away at once, basically because you couldn’t act your way out of a paper bag.
GERALD: All right, if you must have it. (Goes to lean on mantelpiece. It sways perilously. He has to do the rest of the scene nonchalantly holding it up) I first met her in the stalls at the meat market. It’s a favourite haunt of sheep of ill repute –
MRS B: Sheep of ill repute?
INSP: It’s a euphemism for prostitutes, Mrs Birling.
GERALD: No it’s not, I happen to be into sheep.
MRS B: It would be better if Sheila didn’t listen to this story at all.
SHEILA: But you’re forgetting, mother, that – um – sorry, I’ve forgotten. Go on, Gerald.
GERALD: I didn’t propose to stay long down there, I hate those hard-eyed, dough-faced ewes. But then I spotted a sheep who looked quite different. For one thing she only had three legs. My God.
INSP: What’s the matter?
GERALD: Sorry – I – well, I’ve suddenly realised – taken it in properly – that I didn’t set the video for One Man and His Dog.
INSP: (Impatiently) Come along, Mr Croft.
GERALD: Well, I took her along to my permanent suite at the County Hotel – the management there are very broad-minded, troughs in every room, sheep dip on draught, that kind of thing – and we had a drink or two and talked.
INSP: What did she say?
GERALD: A lot of baaing and bleating, I couldn’t make head or tail of it. Pity, that. Great fleece, crap conversationalist.
INSP: And then you decided the keep her – as your mistress?
MRS B: What?
SHEILA: It’s a euphemism for concubine, mother.
MRS B: Oh. I thought it meant prostitute.
GERALD: I suppose it was inevitable. She was young and pretty and soft in the head –and intensely grateful for the artificial leg I bought her. I became a sort of object of hopeless adoration for her – you understand?
INSP: Yes. She was a sheep, you’re an arrogant git. When did this affair end?
GERALD: In the first week of September. We had a row. Not only had the ungrateful hussy lost the wooden leg I gave her, she’d let another one go gangrenous. It was hanging be a thread. So I broke it off before chucking her out on the streets, and I never saw the rancid little minx again.
INSP: I see. Well, thank you for your candour, Mr Croft.
BIRLING: Candour?
ERIC: It’s a euphemism for bullshit, dad.
GERALD: Can I go now? I might get lucky down the meat market again.
INSP: Yes. Good riddance.
SHEILA: And you can take your poxy AA card with you, it clashes with my dress anyway.
GERALD: I don’t think so. (Belches) Excuse me. (Exits. The mantelpiece, now unsupported, crashes to the floor)
ERIC: (Suddenly guffaws)
BIRLING: Go to your room. I’ll come up and read you a bedtime story in a minute.
(ERIC goes out)
MRS B : Perhaps you’d like to leave too, Inspector?
INSP: Not yet. I’m waiting.
MRS B: Waiting? For what?
INSP: For my cue. It’s one of you people.
SHEILA: Oh – horrible, horrible?
BIRLING: Be quiet, Sheila?
INSP: No, neither of those.
MRS B: Don’t be disgusting?
INSP: Oh yes! I think we’d better leave ‘disgust’ out of this, Mrs Birling, in view of what your committee did to Blossom.
MRS B: My committee?
INSP: Yes, when Blossom came to your committee, alone, half-starved, hobbling as best she could on her two remaining legs, not having had a decent dip in weeks –
SHEILA: No no, please, not that again, I’ve imagined it enough already.
INSP: Then the next time you imagine it just remember this sheep was going to have a lamb.
SHEILA: Oh – horrible, horrible!
BIRLING: Be quiet, Sheila.
MRS B: Don’t be disgusting.
INSP: Toasted stomach lining, fricasseed giblets.
BIRLING: (Slowly) Look here – this wasn’t – Gerald –
(Very long pause. They wait on tenterhooks, Eventually –)
INSP: Croft?
BIRLING: That’s the one! Couldn’t quite bring it to mind there for a minute.
INSP: No, nothing to do with him, even though he told us, quite untruthfully I believe, that he was a bit of a ram. Well, Mrs Birling?
MRS B: Don’t look at me. (Lying) I wouldn’t know anything about his sexual prowess.
INSP: No no, what did you tell Blossom when she appeared before your committee?
MRS B: Oh, I don’t think we need to discuss it.
INSP: We’d better, otherwise we’ll be here all night.
MRS B: Very well, I shall tell you what I told her. Go and look for the father of the lamb. It’s his responsibility.
INSP: That doesn’t make it any the less yours. She came to you destitute, on her knees –
MRS B: She was not on her knees at all, she was on a little trolley. She came wheeling in looking like some butcher’s reject out of Porgy and Bess, giving herself ridiculous airs and graces, great woolly article.
INSP: What did she ask for?
MRS B: Oh, a lot of silly nonsense. She wanted manger facilities for the lamb if you please, while she went out to work modelling flock wallpaper. I refused of course.
INSP: Why?
MRS B: Because, Inspector, she’d come to the wrong committee. We were meeting to discuss the erection of a public urinal in the market square. And now no doubt you’d like to say good night.
INSP: Not yet, I’m still waiting.
MRS B: What is it this time?
INSP: For you to park your backside so I can sit down. I’ve been on my feet ever since I came in.
MRS B: Don’t be disgusting.
SHEILA: Mother – stop, stop!
BIRLING: Be quiet, Sheila.
INSP: Fried bowels, toasted bumhole –
BIRLING: Look here, Inspector, you’re not trying to tell us – that –
INSP: Yes?
BIRLING: – my boy – is – somehow –
INSP: What? Keep going, man.
BIRLING: – mixed up – in – in –
(Very long pause)
INSP: Yes? Nearly there.
BIRLING: – this?
INSP: (Immediately thundering) If he is then Mrs Birling’s told us what to do hasn’t she?
MRS B: No I haven’t, I cut that bit because it was so repetitious.
INSP: Repetitious?
MRS B: Yes, the same thing over and over again. Sheer tautology. Needlessly reiterating the same boring facts time after time. Going back and forth over the same ground. Pointlessly repeating things I’ve already said a hundred –
(The INSPECTOR holds up a hand. There is a long pause. Eventually we hear a door slam somewhere offstage and feet pounding hurriedly down the stairs. ERIC bursts into the room, looking dishevelled)
ERIC: Sorry, I was having a –
END OF ACT TWO
ACT THREE
(The same)
ERIC: (Cont’d) – shit. You know don’t you?
INSP: Yes, we heard the flush go.
MRS B: (Distressed) Eric, I can’t believe it, I won’t believe it.
ERIC: Sorry, ma, but when you gotta go, you gotta –
INSP: Don’t start on that, I want to get off. Where did you first meet this sheep?
ERIC: Coming out of an abattoir. There was some slaughterman who wanted her to go there with him and he’d hacked off one of her remaining limbs before she tumbled what his game was.
INSP: You went with her to her pen that night?
ERIC: Yes. She insisted, it seems. She was in that state of post-amputation shock when a ewe can easily turn nasty, and she threatened to make a cow.
INSP: A cow? Don’t you mean a row?
ERIC: No, a cow. Or was it a sow? Out of Plasticine. She was a bit high on morphine at the time, I couldn’t really make it out.
INSP: So you made love?
ERIC: No, I made a little chucky-hen myself, I’ve always preferred poultry to the lesser ungulates.
MRS B: Oh Eric – how could you?
ERIC: It’s easy. First you roll out two little stick shapes for the legs –
INSP: (Cutting in massively) When did you discover this Plasticine was stolen?
ERIC: I recognized a piece of my old chewing gum that had got mixed in with it. I accused Blossom of swiping it from my pocket while I was tying a tourniquet round her stump.
INSP: Did you suggest that she ought to pay you for it?
ERIC: Yes. But when she refused I chopped her final leg off and left her bleeding in the gutter.
MRS B: Eric! You chopped her leg off?
ERIC: I intended to sew it back on again! But she wouldn’t let me. Said I was too young and inexperienced.
INSP: So you just used her for the end of a stupid, drunken evening, as if she was an animal.
ERIC: She was an animal, she was a bloody sheep!
INSP: I’ll rephrase that. You got her pregnant, chopped her leg off, and then abandoned her?
ERIC: That’s about the size of it. But here, how did you know that? Did she tell you?
INSP: No, you just did.
ERIC: Oh yes. (Giggles foolishly) What am I like?
SHEILA: She told mother too.
ERIC: (To MRS BIRLING) Then you killed her – and the lamb she’d have had – my lamb, your own grandlamb – damn you!
(He leaps on MRS BIRLING and they start rolling round the floor. The OTHERS start laying bets on the outcome. ERIC has got her in a half-nelson and is going for a final submission when the INSPECTOR takes charge masterfully)
INSP: Break! (They ALL freeze) I don’t need to know any more and neither do you. We are all members of one body. Eric, you’re an arsehole. Mr and Mrs Birling are a right pair of tits. Miss Birling, you’re –
SHEILA: I know. I’m that piece of fatty gristle between the nostrils.
MRS B: The philtrum?
SHEILA: No, isn’t that that vertical groove between the nose and the upper lip?
MRS B: Oh yes.
BIRLING: Fistula?
SHEILA: No. Septum perhaps?
BIRLING: Oh yes, septum, that’s right.
ERIC: What’s an uvula?
INSP: Can we get on?
SHEILA: What about Gerald? What’s he?
INSP: Oh, he’s like an appendix, no damn use to anyone at all. The point is, we don’t live alone. For instance, you all share this house while I myself cohabit twice a week with a pretty euphemism I know in Manchester. In other words, hell is other people, and if men will not learn that lesson then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish and ludicrous overblown melodramas like this one and Huis Clos. I thank you.
(He makes to leave. The door falls on him, and he has to complete his exit on hands and knees)
BIRLING: (To ERIC) You’re t’one I blame for this.
ERIC: I’m not the stage manager!
MRS B: Eric – I’m absolutely ashamed of you.
ERIC: Why?
MRS B: Your flies are undone.
ERIC: Gee thanks, nobody tells me do they?
SHEILA: I’m ashamed of all of us. We don’t seem to have learnt anything.
MRS B: (With dignity) What do you mean? I haven’t missed a single cue all evening.
BIRLING: Aye, it’s so damned exasperating.
(Enter EDNA)
EDNA: No it’s not, it’s Mr Croft.
(Enter GERALD)
GERALD: I hope you don’t mind but I had a special reason for coming back. That man wasn’t a real farm inspector.
BIRLING: I suspected it all along. For one thing he –
MRS B: (Excitedly) I know what you’re going to say: for one thing he didn’t have shit all over his boots.
BIRLING: Thank you, my dear. Any more of my lines you’d like to steal while you’re about it? Anyway, what I was going to say was, we’ve been had.
GERALD: That’s my line.
BIRLING: Oh shut up, Gerald.
ERIC: That doesn’t alter the fact that the sheep I knew is dead.
GERALD: What sheep? There was probably a whole flock of the things. And how do we know the one we were all involved with was really Flossie or Blossom?
SHEILA: What about the hoofprints?
BIRLING: Oh that’s nothing, we could all have been recognising different hooves.
SHEILA: So none of this ever really happened?
GERALD: No, and I can prove it. Look here, Mr Birling, you sack a sheep called Flossie –
BIRLING: All right, Sherlock, I think we’ve got t’idea. So, no one sheep that all this happened to, no scandal –
SHEILA: And no suicide?
GERALD: We can settle that at once.
SHEILA: How?
GERALD: By ringing up the vet’s. Either there’s a dead sheep there or there isn’t.
BIRLING: (Uneasily) It’ll look a bit queer won’t it – pretending to make a phone call on a prop that isn’t even plugged in?
GERALD: It’s called acting, Mr Birling. (On the phone) Hello, is that the vet’s? Have you had a sheep brought in this evening that committed suicide by drinking disinfectant? Or any like household detergent? … No I can’t wait, I’ve got people here … I see. Thank you. (Hangs up) No sheep has died in there today. They haven’t had a suicidal farm animal in months.
BIRLING: Well done, Gerald. Have a drink, you smug bastard.
MRS B: I must say, Gerald, you’ve argued this very cleverly. Would you like to shag my daughter now?
GERALD: Thank you, Mrs Birling. How about it, Sheila?
SHEILA: Not yet. It’s too soon after dinner, I’d throw up.
MRS B: Speaking of food. (Calling) Edna, you may serve t’supper now.
(Enter EDNA pushing a trolley containing a huge dead legless sheep)
GERALD: Blossom!
BIRLING: Flossie!
GERALD: Oh yes, I’m sure you’re right, sir.
MRS B: How disgusting!
SHEILA: Oh – horrible, horrible!
BIRLING: Be quiet, Sheila.
ERIC: (Suddenly guffaws)
(The telephone rings sharply. There is a moment’s complete silence. BIRLING goes to answer it)
BIRLING: Yes? … Mr Birling speaking …What? … (He hangs up and plods brokenly up stage right. He turns to face them, completely shattered) Wrong number.
(EVERYONE produces a huge sigh of relief, then they turn as one to hack with gusto at the meat as the curtain falls)
The New Bristol Theatre Company’s 1986 production of An Inspector Calls. The proper, serious one.
l to r: Gerald, Sheila, Arthur, Eric, Inspector Goole.
PS
In the same company’s The Provok’d Wife the previous year, I had been required to carry Don off in a fireman’s lift. Distracted by back pain, I lost my way and nearly took his head off barging too close to a flat. And in An Inspector Calls itself, he was one night knocked senseless by a collapsing door but recommenced the performance after a five-minute lie-down. The man was a trouper.