An Inspector Calls Reviews
Stage and Cinema- Highly Recommended
"...Masquerading as one of those staid drawing room mysteries Agatha Christie would knock off during Afternoon Tea while nibbling on scones with clotted cream and crustless cucumber sandwiches, An Inspector Calls by British playwright J. B. Priestley (1894–1984), currently on stage at Theatre 40, is a modern morality play set in an English drawing room which ends in the obdurate evisceration of a family."
Stage Scene LA- Highly Recommended
"...Leave it to director Cate Caplin to take a play I had previously found to be heavy-handed and preachy, J.B. Priestley’s An Inspector Calls, and transform it into something quite magical at Theatre 40."
Stage Raw- Recommended
"...Quibbles aside, Caplin’s staging, van Helsdingen’s knockout performance and the cast’s collective precision make this Inspector less a polite revival and more a sharp elbow to the ribs. It reminds us that Priestley didn’t write a comfortable play — he wrote a warning. And judging by the gasps following that final line, it still provokes astonishment 80 years after first staged."
Larchmont Buzz- Highly Recommended
"...Ask a rich man for financial advice, and he might tell you that money doesn’t grow on trees, cash is cold and hard, and diamonds are forever. Wealth insulates the uppermost circles of society from life’s harsher realities. ‘Old money’ endures while ‘new money’ strives, but far be it from both contingents to concern themselves with the drudgery and toil common to the lower classes. In An Inspector Calls, now playing at Theatre 40 in Beverly Hills, a local tragedy takes one such well-to-do family by surprise when they find it contains the power to shatter their precious illusion of security."
Broadway World- Highly Recommended
"...J.B. Priestley's Hitchcockian suspense drama An Inspector Calls centers on the Birling Family - Arthur, Sylvia, Sheila, and Eric - who live in a comfortable home in Brumley, a fictional English industrial city in the north Midlands where Arthur owns a large plant where he employs many locals. The story begins with the family gathering in their drawing room after enjoying a splendid dinner to celebrate their daughter Sheila's engagement to Gerald Croft."