An Inspector Calls (Act 1)

Front 1

The general effect is substantial and heavily comfortable, but not cosy and homelike.

Back 1

Act 1

Description of house

Front 2

The lighting should be pink and intimate until the INSPECTOR arrives, and then it should be brighter and harder

Back 2

Act 1

Stage directions of lighting

Front 3

ARTHUR BIRLING is a heavy-looking, rather portentous man in his middle fifties with fairly easy manners but rather provincial in his speech

Back 3

Act 1

First description of Mr. B

Front 4

His wife is about fifty, a rather cold woman and her husband's social superior.

Back 4

Act 1

First description of Mrs. B

Front 5

SHEILA is a pretty girl in her early twenties, very pleased with life and rather excited.

Back 5

Act 1

First description of Sheila

Front 6

GERALD CROFT is an attractive chap about thirty, rather too manly to be a dandy but very much the easy well-bred young man-about-town.

Back 6

Act 1

First description of Gerald Croft

Front 7

ERIC is in his early twenties, not quite at ease, half shy, half assertive.

Back 7

Act 1

First description of Eric

Front 8

'Mummy'

'Daddy'

Back 8

Act 1

Sheila referring to her mother/father

Front 9

'your engagement to Sheila means a tremendous lot to me. She'll make you happy and I'm sure she'll make you happy. You're just the kind of son-in-law I always wanted.'

Back 9

Act 1

Mr Birling speaking to Gerald

Front 10

'Oh - Gerald - you've got it - is it the one you wanted me to have?'

Back 10

Act 1

Sheila speaking to Gerald about the engagement ring he's bought her

Front 11

'I say there isn't a chance of war'

Back 11

Act 1

Mr Birling speaking about how WW1 won't happen

Front 12

'and unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable.'

Back 12

Act 1

Mr Birling speaking about the Titanic and it's maiden voyage

Front 13

'and I tell you, by that time you'll be living in a world that'll have forgotten about all these Capital versus Labour agitations'

Back 13

Act 1

Mr Birling speaking about the future (1940) of the government. After the play is set Britain gets it's first Labour government.

Front 14

'hardheaded practical businessmen men'

Back 14

Act 1

How Mr Birling refers to himself (repetition)

Front 15

'You seem to be a nice well-behaved family-'

Back 15

Act 1

Gerald speaking to Mr Birling about their family

Front 16

'Not just something to wear - and not only something to make them look prettier - but - well, a sort of sign or token of their self-respect.'

Back 16

Act 1

Mr Birling speaking about clothes for women

Front 17

'a man has to make his own way - has to look after himself - and his family too, of course'

Back 17

Act 1

Mr Birling

Front 18

'you'd think everybody has to look after everyone else, as if we were all mixed up together like bees in a hive - community and all that nonsense.'

Back 18

Act 1

Mr Birling

Front 19

The INSPECTOR need not be a big man but he creates at once an impression of massiveness, solidity and purposefulness.

Back 19

Act 1

First description of Inspector Goole pt1

Front 20

He is a man in his fifties, dresses in plain darkish suit of the period. He speaks carefully, weightily, and has a disconcerting habit of looking hard at the person he addresses before actually speaking.

Back 20

Act 1

First description of Inspector Goole

Front 21

'Yes, she was in great agony.'

Back 21

Act 1

Inspector Goole speaking of Eva Smiths suicide

Front 22

'Still, I can't accept any responsibility for everything that happened to everybody we'd had to do with'

Back 22

Act 1

Mr Birling talking about how he isn't responsible for the suicide

Front 23

'She was a lively good-looking girl - country bred,'

Back 23

Act 1

Mr Birling describing Eva Smith

Front 24

'It's a free country, I told them.'

Back 24

Act 1

Mr Birling reciting what he told the workers that went on strike (refusing to increase wages)

Front 25

'She had a lot to say - far too much - so she had to go.'

Back 25

Act 1

Mr Birling speaking about Eva Smith

Front 26

'But after all it's better to ask for the earth than to take it.'

Back 26

Act 1

Inspector Goole

Front 27

'Why shouldn't they try for higher wages? We try for the highest possible prices. And I don't see why she should had been sacked just because she'd a bit more spirit than the others. You said yourself she was a good worker. I'd have let her stay.'

Back 27

Act 1

Eric standing up to his fathers views

Front 28

'I can't help thinking about thinking about this girl - destroying herself so horribly - and I've been do happy tonight. Oh I wish you hadn't told me'

Back 28

Act 1

Sheila Birling upon finding out about the suicide of Eva Smith

Front 29

'Well, of course, if I'd known that earlier, I wouldn't have called you officious and talked about reporting you'

Back 29

Act 1

Mr Birling upon finding out the Inspector isn't there for just him

Front 30

'But these girls aren't cheap labour - they're people'

Back 30

Act 1

Sheila Birling

Front 31

'A nice little promising life there, I thought, and a nasty mess somebody's made of it.'

Back 31

Act 1

Inspector speaking about Eva's suicide

Front 32

'Sometimes there isn't as much difference as you think. Often, if it was left to me, I wouldn't know where to draw the line.'

Back 32

Act 1

Inspector speaking about the line between citizens and criminals (morals)

Front 33

'I can't accept any responsibility'

Back 33

Act 1

Mr Birling about Eva's suicide and him firing her

Front 34

'So I'm really responsible?'

Back 34

Act 1

Sheila accepting fault/acknowledging that she played a role in Eva's suicide

Front 35

(startled) 'What?'

Back 35

Act 1

Gerald's reaction to Inspector Goole saying the name Daisy Renton

Front 36

(laughs rather hysterically) ' Why - you fool - he knows. Of course he knows. And I hate to think how much he knows that we don't know yet.'

Back 36

Act 1

Sheila speaking to Gerald about the fact that the Inspector probably knows about some relationship between him and Daisy Renton.

Front 37

'... what happened to her then may have determined what happened to her afterwards, and what happened afterwards may have driven her to suicide. A chain of events.'

Back 37

Act 1

Inspector Goole