Every card in Modern texts, Year 11: 1912 and 1945, stagecraft and dramatic method (An Inspector Calls option)
The whole deck, in order — so you can read it through before your child ever sees it.
- In which year was An Inspector Calls first performed? (year, four digits)
1945
HintThe year the Second World War ended.
WhyPriestley wrote it in a single week. Its first British production followed in London in 1946.
- In which country was An Inspector Calls first staged?
The Soviet Union
HintNot Britain: a wartime ally to the east.
WhyIt opened in Moscow and Leningrad because no suitable London theatre was free.
- Mr Birling says there will be no war. In which year did the First World War begin? (year, four digits)
1914
HintTwo years after the evening of the play.
WhyThe first audience had lived through that war and another. Every confident word Mr Birling says about the future is heard against what they knew.
- Mr Birling praises a new liner as unable to sink. What happened to the real ship in April 1912?
The Titanic sank on its first voyage
HintIt happened in the North Atlantic.
WhyIn the play it has not yet met its fate. Priestley uses the best-known disaster of the age to mark Mr Birling as a man who cannot see what is coming.
- Which political party won the British general election of 1945 and went on to build the welfare state?
Labour
HintThe party of the left.
WhyThe play belongs to that moment: a country deciding, after two wars, how much its people owed one another.
- Why does it matter that the play is set in 1912 and not in 1945?
The audience knows what the characters do not, so the family's confidence looks blind
HintHindsight.
WhySetting it earlier also shows a world before the welfare state, in which a girl like Eva had nothing to fall back on.
- The stage directions ask for the lighting to change when the Inspector arrives. How does it change?
From a soft, pinkish glow to a brighter, harsher light
HintThink of a cosy room, then of an interrogation.
WhyThe warm light suits a family pleased with itself. The stronger light suggests that things are about to be seen clearly, like a lamp turned on a suspect.
- In which room of the Birlings' house does the whole play take place?
The dining room
HintThe family has just finished a meal.
WhyThe set never changes. One reading is that the single room shows how shut off the family is from the town outside, and gives them nowhere to escape the questions.
- The Inspector shows the girl's photograph to only one person at a time. What doubt does this make possible later?
That he may not have shown everyone the same photograph, so they may not all have known the same girl
HintGerald is the one who points it out.
WhyThis small piece of stage business carries the whole argument of Act 3 about whether there was one girl or several.
- Which piece of household equipment is used three times after the Inspector has left, the last time to overturn the ending?
The telephone
HintTwo calls are made from the house and one comes in.
WhyMr Birling rings the chief constable, Gerald rings the infirmary, and then it rings for them. The same object that seemed to clear the family brings the news that undoes them.
- In an essay on a play, do the stage directions count as evidence of the writer's methods?
Yes: they are the playwright's own choices about what an audience sees and hears
HintA play is written to be performed, not only read.
WhyWriting about entrances, sounds, lighting and timing shows that you are treating the text as drama. Describe them accurately in your own words.
1★ GCSE-ENLI-MOD-0048
2★ GCSE-ENLI-MOD-0049
3★ GCSE-ENLI-MOD-0050
4★ GCSE-ENLI-MOD-0051
5★ GCSE-ENLI-MOD-0052
6★ GCSE-ENLI-MOD-0053
7★ GCSE-ENLI-MOD-0054
8★ GCSE-ENLI-MOD-0055
9★ GCSE-ENLI-MOD-0056
10★ GCSE-ENLI-MOD-0057
11★ GCSE-ENLI-MOD-0058
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