J.B. Priestley’s play takes place on a single night in April 1912,focussing on the prosperous Birling family,who live in a comfortable home in the fictional industrial town of Brumley in the north Midlands. The family is visited by a man calling himself Inspector Goole (Jonathan Hester), who questions them about the suicide of a young working-class woman in her mid-twenties (Tina Jones). Each member of the family is revealed to have a part in the girl’s life. Then there’s a twist at the end…
Brenda Hester produces. J.B. Priestley is our most-performed author
Ralph Hastings remembers skipping a couple of pages of script by mistake during one performance. The rest of the cast were forced to follow him. However, the play has a complicated plot, so there was much improvisation to explain the missing parts – such as “As you see in this photograph, Inspector, which I should have perhaps shown you earlier…. ”
