to wonder how many people are getting hideous flashbacks to GCSE English lessons?

[HookedOnHooking]

Watching An Inspector Calls social history blah blah...

I can smell that moldy old temporary classroom.
I feel actually nauseous.

[Junosmum]

I loved an inspector calls, and Shakespeare, but nothing else.

[PseudoBadger]

Yes! But can't remember if it was English, drama or a-level theatre studies for me

[ilovesooty]

I taught it plenty of times. I'm rather enjoying this.

[Blackcloudsbrightsky]

I hate AIC and I'm an English teacher!

[ilovesooty]

I think the inspector's final speech is wonderful, and very appropriate today.

[badgergirl82]

I agree ILS.

Is it just me who thinks Eric sexually assaulted Eva? He says to the inspector he is 'in the mood where a chap causes trouble' or similar which I always read as her not consenting. No one seems to agree with me, I haven't taught it for a few years - have done The Woman in Black and Lord of the Flies over the last four years or so.

[HookedOnHooking]

It's not even the dreariness of it but the foul school feelings. Urgh.

[Wobblystraddle]

It's such a great story.

I didn't actually know it was on, but the first thing I thought when I just flicked it on was relief that we have a better film to show year 11 now. (I love Alastair Sim, but this will be more relatable.)

Teaching Silas Marner at the moment has given me a greater appreciation of teaching AIC. I loved studying it for my own GCSE.

[ilovesooty]

I think they've definitely tweaked the dialogue to suggest an element of coercion.

[hattyhatter]

No. When was this on the syllabus?

It is very timely.

[Blackcloudsbrightsky]

But it's so preachy and nowadays Eva smith would be able to claim benefits and Sheila birling was just spiteful and Gerald was a knob.

[Wobblystraddle]

badgergirl it's really interesting that we never even considered that angle when I studied it in 1992/3 and hadn't discussed it in great detail when I started teaching it the years ago. These days, though, nearly all students want to discuss it as a rape, which I believe it is.

So depressing that I went to a girls' school and it was never even raised as a discussion point.

[hattyhatter]

Tweaked? Tweaked what?

[mizu]

Loved reading An Inspector Calls for GCSE.

Went on to do English A level and English at Leeds Uni. And now teach - language not lit though.

Remember hating Silas Marner though Wobbly

[Wobblystraddle]

black I saw the NT production and thought the inspector so, so, so preachy it was dreadful.

[badgergirl82]

I must admit it went over my head a little until I read it one day and suddenly thought 'hold on!'

The inspector does say that he used her like an animal but it is largely glossed over and Eric comes out of the whole thing looking quite good which really, he shouldn't!

[ilovesooty]

Sheila was petulant on one occasion and was truly sorry and I think Gerald develops real insight. The parents are the really awful ones.

[Wobblystraddle]

mizu why use one word when 100 will do? :)

[hattyhatter]

I CBA to go and find a copy to compare. I thought this sounded like original dialogue.

[ilovesooty]

And you couldn't claim benefits then.

The message about social responsibility isn't preachy. It's universally and timelessly powerful.

[Blackcloudsbrightsky]

It was a bit more than petulance!

I don't know. It just seems a bit 'bitchy rich girl is mean: society is flawed.'

Mind you I hate Of Mice and Men as well.

[Blackcloudsbrightsky]

I know you couldn't claim benefits then but that's why I'm not convinced it's all that relevant now.

Nowadays hopefully Eva would not have been in a position where she was forced to hang round dodgy places meeting stupid blokes but arguably if she was and got pregnant society would have ensured at the least she was fed and clothed and housed. So I'm not sure it is relevant any more in the same way it was pre 1914 (and I know it wasn't written then.)

[ilovesooty]

Society was flawed then, and in many ways it is now.

[badgergirl82]

Eric says he "insisted" on going back to Eva's lodgings and "I was in that state when a chap easily turns nasty - and I threatened to make a row."

Poor Eva

I think society has changed for the better in terms of actually looking after one another but what we have to ask ourselves is, have our attitudes changed? I hear many people say the sorts of things Mr and Mrs Birling say about looking after ourselves - not the refugees, in other words; I hear people say women, not men, are to blame for unwanted pregnancies and that line 'girls of that class' said by Mrs Birling can be heard everywhere, only its 'people of that class.' It's in the sneering and laughing of people of a certain culture when Jeremy Kyle or similar is on, and it's most unpleasant.

It is absolutely relevant in remembering we are all people whether we live on 'Benefits Street' or are from Syria or whatever.

[Wobblystraddle]

But black, there are many situations in which we could be looking out for our neighbours, but aren't, to the detriment of our personal experiences and relationships, and to the detriment of society. Even if these situations are less to do with benefits now than they were when Priestley was writing this play.