Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Rory Kinnear, Karen Ascoe, Nigel Anthony, Paul Hilton, Richard Attlee, Trevor Littledale, Samantha Hughes, Inna Metlina, Olegs Ohotins.

There can be little doubt that J.B. Priestley’s An Inspector Calls is one of the most enduring, important, and defining plays of the 20th Century. Conceived and written at a time when the fire that consumed the world and destroyed what little pretence that we projected to having a society being for the benefit of all, and was shakily losing ground to the horrors unearthed on foreign fields; and yet one that might not have seen the light of day in post war Britain because of Winston Churchill’s umbrage and offence to the writer’s socialist beliefs.

The 80th anniversary of the first production of a play that to this day has audiences gripped by the subtly and meaning of the politically charged script is one that arguably made history in itself, and one that writer Mark Burgess has taken great pains to ensure the reasons behind the debut of the theatrical performance being held in Soviet Russia, and with a grateful, indeed perhaps ecstatic Stalin relishing the coup of the day.

The power of An Inspector Calls On Moscow is not shy to reveal itself, it doesn’t spare the blushes of long since dead men whose reputations were forged in rhetoric and what could be determined as fortune, and as the outspoken views of Priestley’s past and present merge delightfully in unfolding truth, so the listener is granted an understanding of just how volatile the situation after the war was in Britain; a general election in the air, an increasing desire for radical change, and once and for all to have society’s attitude reflect, not from the top, but from all corners of life.

It is in the voice of Rory Kinnear as the famous playwright which sets the undiminishing tone for the radio play, the trials of finding a theatre in Britain that would take the serious and damning play, rebuffed at almost every corner by those who may have been well-meaning in suggesting a comedy to cheer the public up after six long years of rationing, of nightly bombing raids by the evil of Hitler’s war machine, and the continual struggle of keeping a firm head in times of despair; and yet what Britain really required was an honesty of openness, to know that every person’s efforts had not been in vain, that they would come the new dawn, be listened to, be heard.

In what in effect was state censorship of Priestley’s work by the Government, by Churchill who was too proud, too conceited to recognise that time had been called on the past. The only problem is time is cyclical, and we have reached a point where government itself needs once again to hear the damning words of the author, that the lowest in society, the disadvantaged, the underprivileged, the poor, the needy, are not drains on this progressive new society, but souls left to rot, waiting to suffer the same fate as Eva Smith.

An Inspector Calls On Moscow is a searing indictment on times’ passing echo, a reminder that given enough time government of any persuasion will soon find a way to destroy and subjugate the population, to treat them as nothing more than fodder for the machine.

A terrific play, one of genius reaction and truth.

Ian D. Hall