A classic of mid-20th century theater, the Hitchcockian suspense drama AN INSPECTOR CALLS centers on the Birling family– Arthur, Sylvia, Sheila, and Eric -who live in a comfortable home in the fictional town of Brumley, “an industrial city in the north Midlands.”
The family is visited by a man calling himself Inspector Goole, who interrogates the family about the suicide of a young working-class woman in her mid-twenties, Eva Smith. During his questioning, all members of the family are lightly or deeply implicated in the girl’s undoing, including Sheila’s fiancé Gerald Croft. What begins as a parlor drama with polite banter quickly becomes acid and hateful. Everyone is not who they seem to be, including the inspector, thanks to a Twilight Zone-inspired plot twist.
