When the family talk over what has happened, they begin to question whether their visitor was a real police inspector. Mr Birling makes a phone call to the chief constable, who confirms that there is no Inspector Goole on the force. With a further call to the infirmary confirming that no recent cases of suicide have been reported, the family surmise that the inspector was a fraud and that they have been the victims of a hoax. Gerald and the elder Birlings celebrate in relief, but Eric and Sheila continue to feel guilt. The phone then rings and the police tell them that a young woman has just died in the infirmary in a suspected suicide, and that they are on their way to question the family. The inspector's identity is left unexplained (though a clue is in the name), but it is clear that the family's confessions over the course of the evening have all been true, and that public disgrace will soon befall them. Sybil Birling, "a rather cold woman" of about fifty, is Arthur's wife. As the leader of a charitable organisation, she assumes a social and moral superiority over Inspector Goole, whose questioning style she frequently refers to as "impertinent" and "offensive". Like her husband, she refuses to accept responsibility for the death of Eva Smith, and seems more concerned with maintaining the family's reputation, even going so far as to lie and deny that she recognizes the girl's picture. She derides women like Eva as immoral, dishonest, and greedy.

Birling makes a lengthy speech, not only congratulating Gerald and Sheila, but also commenting on the state of the nation. He predicts prosperity, particularly referring to the example of the “unsinkable” Titanic, which set sail the week earlier. Birling styles himself as a “hard-headed man of business.” History, to be worthy of the name, should bring us a stereoscopic view of man's life. Without that extra dimension, strangely poignant as well as vivid, it is flat and because it is flat, it is false. There are two patterns, endlessly being superimposed on one another. The first pattern is that of man reproducing himself, finding food and shelter, tilling the land, building cities, crossing the seas. It is the picture we understand now with ease, perhaps too easily. For the other pattern is still there, waiting to be interpreted. It is the record of man as a spiritual creature, with a whole world of unknown continents and strange seas, gardens of Paradise and cities lit with hell-fire, within the depths of his own soul. History that ignores the god and the altar is as false as history that could forget the sword and the wheel...' Doctor Gortler, a displaced German scientist, arrives at the Double Bull Inn run by Sam Shipley and his widowed daughter Sally Pratt in Grindle Moor, North Yorkshire. Apparently, he seems to know that the industrialist Ormund and his wife Janet are due to arrive there - and also about the drama to be played out between them and Oliver Farrant, a schoolmaster teaching at one of the Ormund schools. As the events play out in their inevitability, Dr. Gottler acts as a sort of deus ex machina to resolve them.An Inspector Calls – Context and Political Views". OxNotes – English Literature Notes. England: OxNotes.com. Archived from the original on 8 October 2018 . Retrieved 8 October 2018. Woodeson, Nicholas. "Revisiting Inspector Calls". WhatsOnStage.com. Archived from the original on 8 February 2018 . Retrieved 7 February 2018. David Thewlis plays title role in BBC's An Inspector Calls". Prolific North. 30 January 2015. Archived from the original on 6 February 2015 . Retrieved 9 March 2015. It is an Inspector, who refuses a drink from Birling. Birling is surprised, as an ex-Lord Mayor and an alderman, that he has never seen the Inspector before, though he knows the Brumley police force pretty well. The Inspector explains that he is here to investigate the death of a girl who died two hours ago in the Infirmary after committing suicide by drinking disinfectant. Her name was Eva Smith, and the Inspector brings with him a photograph, which he shows to Birling—but not to anyone else. The Linden Tree', a Chekhov-like study of family relationships, finds the Lindens divided : Professor Linden at sixty-five could retire but is dedicated to teaching at a run-down provincial university. But his wife and rich son Rex have other ideas. . .

David Thewlis to lead cast of BBC One adaptation of An Inspector Calls". DIY Magazine. 3 February 2015 . Retrieved 9 March 2015. An Inspector Calls cast". An Inspector Calls. Archived from the original on 8 September 2019 . Retrieved 5 February 2020. An Inspector Calls (lost television adaptation of play; 1948) - The Lost Media Wiki". lostmediawiki.com . Retrieved 16 September 2023. The fact that his presence combines 'massiveness' with 'purposefulness' suggests that the Inspector would be a very imposing figure.David Thewlis. "David Thewlis to lead cast of BBC One's adaptation of JB Priestley's An Inspector Calls - Media Centre". BBC . Retrieved 23 September 2015.

Saltaire is filming location for TV adaptation of An Inspector Calls". Telegraph & Argus. 20 February 2015 . Retrieved 9 March 2015. J.B. Priestley's An Inspector Calls and Other Plays collects four groundbreaking works by a master playwright in Penguin Modern Classics. As we reach the 70th Anniversary since its first staging in Russia in 1945, we ask what is the enduring appeal of An Inspector Calls? What makes it Priestley’s most performed and most popular play? Pinpointing one single reason is difficult so let us consider three. This could be any drawing room comedy of the fifties: pleasant and mediocre. But Priestly expertly wrong-foots us by breaking the scene in-between and taking nineteen years forward in time in the second act. It's once again Kay's birthday party, this time the fortieth, but the occasion is far from pleasant: the Conways have lost their wealth, relationships have formed and broken down, and most of the family (except Alan) have become disillusioned and embittered. The euphoria of the roaring twenties have given way to the despondency of the forties, and a second war is looming on the horizon.An Inspector Calls (1946): The only play in this volume that may be familiar to American and British playgoers; a National Theatre production happens to be running now on the West End in London. It’s not strictly a murder mystery, yet the offstage suicide from which its plot springs might just as well have been a murder. The play isn’t merely a period piece either, though it’s set in spring 1912, shortly before the sailing of Titanic, which is mentioned as imminent, and (we know) not long before another calamity, that of the First World War. The action is straightforward. The police inspector of the title (whose name, Goole, is a homonym for “ghoul”) probes relentlessly into the seemingly innocuous affairs of a single family and proves his case. In exposing the past and revealing moral failings, he’s like the personification of Ibsen’s dramatic principles; the interconnections he uncovers are similar to what Priestley had established through other means in I Have Been Here Before. Ocr tesseract 5.0.0-1-g862e Ocr_detected_lang en Ocr_detected_lang_conf 1.0000 Ocr_detected_script Latin Ocr_detected_script_conf 1.0000 Ocr_module_version 0.0.15 Ocr_parameters -l eng Old_pallet IA-NS-2000522 Openlibrary_edition An Inspector Calls". Internet Broadway Database. Archived from the original on 26 October 2016 . Retrieved 26 October 2016. An Inspector Calls is about the death of a young woman. But it is not a whodunnit – at least, not of the conventional, forensic kind. An inspector arrives to investigate the death, but the questions he asks the well-heeled, complacent Birlings are not those of your typical policeman. In any case, the death is a suicide: there is no killer to be unmasked. Instead, a different kind of culpability is being investigated, as we, and the Birlings, are led through a series of revelations which pass the moral blame for the girl’s death from one family member to another – and, ultimately, to a whole social system and set of values.