“It is an evening in spring, 1912.” In the industrial North-Midlands town of Brumley, an upper-middle class family are celebrating the engagement of their daughter to the heir of a rival factory dynasty. The Birling family is headed by Arthur, a self-made and pragmaticbusinessman. If Arthur is the patriarch or male head of the family, his wife Mrs Sibyl Birling is the matriarch; domineering and snobbish, Mrs Birling commands the household with all the authority of an Edwardian socialite. Their daughter Sheila is giddy, materialistic and childish, whilst their son Eric appears to be an aloofbut handsome young man prone to drinking. Gerald Croft, Sheila’s fiancé, is both charming and polite – everything that an eligible bachelor of the time should be. Their spring evening takes a sudden turn when Inspector Goole, a new edition to the local police force, arrives to inform the group of a tragedy: a woman, Eva Smith, has committed suicide by drinking bleach and has died in agony at the local infirmary. Whilst it is at first unclear how the family figure into the story, one by one, the inspector unveils the true reasons for the girl’s demise.
