It is an Inspector, who refuses a drink from Birling. Birling is surprised, as an ex-Lord Mayor and an alderman, that he has never seen the Inspector before, though he knows the Brumley police force pretty well. The Inspector explains that he is here to investigate the death of a girl who died two hours ago in the Infirmary after committing suicide by drinking disinfectant. Her name was Eva Smith, and the Inspector brings with him a photograph, which he shows to Birling—but not to anyone else. Singh, Anita (13 September 2015). "An Inspector Calls, BBC One, review: 'subtle as a sledgehammer' ". The Daily Telegraph. London . Retrieved 14 September 2015. An Inspector Calls, written at a time when society was undergoing sweeping transformations, has been produced as a successful film, and enjoyed repeated revivals since it was first produced in 1946. While holding its audience with the gripping tension of a detective thriller, it is also a philosophical play about social conscience and the crumbling of middle class values.

Edinburgh Gateway Company (1965), The Twelve Seasons of the Edinburgh Gateway Company, 1953 - 1965, St. Giles Press, Edinburgh, p. 44 When considering who is responsible for this helpless waif’s death Esther Summerson tells Mr Skimpole that ‘everybody is obliged to be’. In An Inspector Calls Priestley does not treat it as an obligation, but as an imperative: When the inspector visits the Birling's house she says "an Inspector's called." She is asked to stay up late during the play by Mrs Birling to make tea for the Birling family. The young girl who allegorically represents the working class in a capitalist society; she doesn't have any lines in the play. All Birling characters behaved in ways that completely altered her life for the worst, culminating in her suicide by drinking some strong disinfectant. The inspector reads her diary before interrogating the Birlings. She is described as being young and pretty, with dark eyes. She also changes her name from Eva Smith to Daisy Renton. There are four plays in this book and the first three of them are superb. The fourth is good but to be honest I also found it a bit boring. Why? For the simple reason that the first three have metaphysical, supernatural, moral, social and paradoxical elements. The fourth only has the moral and social input. But let's not be too harsh on 'The Linden Tree'. Certainly the characters in the play are very engaging and the ending is excellent, namely the hint of the resurgence of the spirit of a great professor who has almost, but not quite, been crushed by circumstances outside his control.In 1986 Richard Wilson directed a production at the Royal Exchange, Manchester with Geraldine Alexander as Sheila Birling, Hugh Grant as Eric Birling and Graeme Garden as Inspector Goole. [16] The following text, by Dr John Baxendale, is a programme essay for a production Of An Inspector Calls at the Canadian Shaw Festival, 2008. Nathan, George Jean (1948). "An Inspector Calls". The Theatre Book of the Year: A Record and an Interpretation. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. pp.113–115. a b Priestley, J. B. (1947). Bezant, Tim (ed.). An Inspector Calls: A Play in Three Acts (1992ed.). London: Heinemann. pp.xi–xiv. ISBN 0-435-23282-7.

John Plunkett (14 September 2015). "BBC's An Inspector Calls arrests nearly 6 million viewers | Media". The Guardian . Retrieved 23 September 2015.An Inspector Calls was first performed in 1945 in two Russian theatres (Moscow's Kamerny Theatre and Leningrad's Comedy Theatre), as a suitable British venue could not be found. [9] [10] Priestley had written the play in a single week and all Britain's theatres had already been booked for the season. [11] The play had its first British production in 1946 at the New Theatre in London with Ralph Richardson as Inspector Goole, Harry Andrews as Gerald Croft, Margaret Leighton as Sheila Birling, Julien Mitchell as Arthur Birling, Marian Spencer as Sybil Birling and Alec Guinness as Eric Birling. [12] In February 2015, filming began in Saltaire, West Yorkshire. [6] Although the exterior shots of the mill were filmed at Saltaire, the interior shots of the mill were filmed at Queen Street Mill on the outskirts of Burnley, Lancashire. A full-sized office was built in the middle of the Weaving Shed for this production and was dismantled once filming was completed. I Have Been Here Before', another 'time' play, is based on a theory of Time and Human Life as a recurring cycle. During a weekend in the Yorkshire dales, Dr Görtler, a mysterious refugee, tries to save a rich couple and a young schoolmaster from a tragic course of action.