'An Inspector Calls' - Novello Theatre

Date: Thursday 15 October 2009

No, this is nothing to do with the forthcoming visit of the 'inspectors' to St Edmund's School, but rather a most successful outing to London, yesterday evening, to see the latest production of J.B.Priestley's masterpiece, 'An Inspector Calls'.

44 pupils, all of whom are studying either Drama to GCSE or Theatre Studies in the Sixth Form, plus six members of staff travelled to ther vicinity of Covent Garden to see the highly-acclaimed Stephen Daldrey production of the Priestley drama set in the years immediately before the outbreak of war in 1914. With its socialist message of the need for the bourgeoisie to be wary of their disdain for the working classes, the play has a significant political undertone, but our pupils were more concerned with the set, and whether its construction was well suited to the needs of the play itself.

The set was spectacular - cinematic? - incorporating a rainstorm which left the stage drenched!; the acting was, from a cast of relative unknowns, 'in period'; and the pupil body was full of excitement on the return journay, late though they were, at an evening well spent, both in the context of a simple theatre visit, but also looking ahead to the demands of next summer's exam papers.

And today? The junior musicians travel to the Royal Festival Hall, for a sample of the Slavonic: Glinka, Dvorak, and my all-time favourite, Alexander Glazunov. If it were not for the Inter-House Quiz,.....