With his Scottish brogue, brown raincoat and forensic line of questioning, Liam Brennan’s performance as the eponymous Inspector Goole is a cross between Taggart and Columbo. But in place of the Glaswegian detective’s droll catchphrase “there’s been a murder” is a sorry tale about a young woman who committed suicide by drinking disinfectant. And unlike the Californian cop’s meandering enquiries to frame a culprit whose identity, motive and means of execution are revealed in the opening scene is an enigmatic whodunnit, which attempts to “understand” and “share the blame”.

Bar an obvious bout of lurgy, Brennan’s performance and that of his fellow cast members which included understudies Geoffrey Towers as the pigeon-chested businessman Arthur Birling,  as his frosty wife Sybil and Benedict Salter as their drink-sodden son Eric were impressive. As was Stephen Daldry’s bold direction, which was characterised by the meticulous manipulation of actors from one chess square to another so as to focus attention on the subtext of a line and its ramifications on a specific individual. But the real “stars” of the National Theatre’s long-running and award-winning production of J. B. Priestley’s classical thriller An Inspector Calls, which is running at The Playhouse Theatre in London until 25 March, are the Yorkshireman’s timeless script and Ian MacNeil’s striking set.

From the off, this is no period piece suffocated by tradition and realism. Sirens wail, bombs drop and a scrawny child runs onto the stage to pick up a few scraps from the pavement. Bored, he kicks an old wireless broadcasting news of impending war, peeks under the front curtain, then shines a torch at the audience: Big Brother is watching, there is no place to hide, we are all implicated in what is to follow. Or as Goole says in response to Mr Birling’s Thatcherite philosophy of “a man has to mind his own business and look after himself and his own”: “We are responsible for each other. And I tell you that the time will soon come when if men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish.”

The curtain, when it eventually rises, moves painfully slow to reveal an enclosed doll’s house in which the lengthy opening scene unfolds. Talk of port and cigars, the bottom line and knighthoods, marriage and privilege, waft out of the small windows as street urchins in rags and an elderly maid with a stoop like a broken twig lie in the gutter under the falling rain. A place where the well-to-do Birling family unexpectedly find themselves towards the end of the play when the full ramifications of their involvement in the young woman’s death become clear and their house of cards falls to the ground smashing their ornate crockery and upstanding reputations to smithereens.

In addition to the bold direction and striking set, Rick Fisher’s stark lighting design and Stephen Warbeck’s brooding score elevate what is usually played as a dry domestic drama to a universal morality tale on an epic scale. Inspector Goole’s entrance and exit are bookmarked with great flair: the former, in silhouette with his back to the audience and his gaze fixed to the house on the hill; the latter, a straight-to-camera monologue ending in: “We don’t live alone. Good night.” And the dramatic entrance of the drink-sodden and guilt-ridden Eric to receive the play’s fifth and final dressing down is backlit with a blinding shaft of light through which he hurls himself on stage like a condemned man thrown to the lions. Terrific, just like the show!

Peter Callaghan
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