Why now is the perfect time for An Inspector Calls

* “The following review does NOT contain spoilers!”

BBC One’s adaptation of JB Priestley’s An Inspector Calls couldn’t have aired at a more apt political moment…

… The BBC’s An Inspector Calls is airing in a week where front pages are dominated by people fleeing war in desperate need of help, and the political conversation is about who should be responsible for these strangers.

J.B. Priestley’s 1945 story about the corrosive nature of class privilege was always a fierce call for compassion. Arriving on BBC One after recent headlines, its message feels white-hot. … Set in 1912, the story tells of the collective role members of a wealthy family played in the suicide of a young working class woman. With its dead body, manor house, dinner party, visiting inspector and would-be aristocratic suspects, it first assumes the shape of a detective drama but quickly reveals itself to be an entirely different beast”

An Inspector Calls is available now on BBC iPlayer and previous BBC versions and older films in YouTube.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p02z80kq/an-inspector-calls

Reviews:

http://www.denofgeek.com/tv/an-inspector-calls/36928/why-now-is-the-perfect-time-for-an-inspector-calls

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/tv-and-radio-reviews/11858583/An-Inspector-Calls-BBC-One-review-subtle-as-a-sledgehammer.html

Watch now: Exclusive interviews with the cast of the BBC’s An Inspector Calls

https://www.thestage.co.uk/news/2015/watch-now-exclusive-interviews-cast-bbcs-inspector-calls/

I recommend it wholeheartedly, and I do find its Christian subtext intriguing, my only objection being, in total agreement with Anita Singh, that this part drawing room whodunit, part classic thriller, part socialist manifesto, part twentieth-century morality play, has the subtlety of a sledgehammer!

John Donne

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend’s were.
Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

From Meditation 17