AIBU to hate An Inspector Calls?

[Evasmithsghost]

English teacher so have to teach this dirge every year.

I hate the superior, haughty, lecturing tone taken throughout.

Hate Gerald and the way he’s partially let off the hook.

Hate the way Mrs Birling is given such harsh treatment by the playwright when in fact she is quite right and Eva did lie.

Really can’t stand this play!

I hate the way it’s all so clunkingly obvious.
You have my sympathy having to teach it.

I’ve often thought similarly. It does seem to place particular blame on the women.

I think I'd start to hate any play, even Macbeth, if I had to teach it year after year.

We went to see AIC the Sept before lockdown & I really enjoyed it. Shame it then got dropped due to Covid ... As a text for GCSE it's not bad though, surely?

I loved it at school!

I did have a fantastic English teacher though who made all texts so very interesting and explained lots of minor details that I would glance over. For example in An Inspector Calls the name Eva Smith represents was chosen as it means "every body" and so on,

I've not taught it in years. I do remember it with a faint warmth but now I think about it Gerald was truly a shit and wasn't as harshly treated as the women. Sheila had a raw deal there for defo.

I liked the David Thewelis version.

The very famous1990's National Theatre production turned a lot of what you say on its head. That's what I love about plays, it's the way they are produced and the interpretation that can change something flat on the page into something quite different.

@Movinghouseatlast

The very famous1990's National Theatre production turned a lot of what you say on its head. That's what I love about plays, it's the way they are produced and the interpretation that can change something flat on the page into something quite different.

I would love to hear more about that.

Gerald was a complete shit.

I know about the Eva smith / John smith reference. Still hate the play.

I really liked it. I've only had to read/study it once though.

"You're squiffy" is the only bit I can remember

DD is enjoying it, but I do feel sorry for English teachers now that it seems to be the same three texts for years on end. There doesn't seem to be nearly as much variety in KS3 either.

Am I too cynical in thinking that schools all opt for the same texts because they're shorter/easier and it helps to maximise grades, and that before league tables it was easier to choose the texts they would enjoy teaching - which would probably mean more inspiring teaching.

I was an extra in The National Theatre version in the 1990s when it went on tour, this is my claim to fame.

I had to stand around on stage watching the action of the play as an invisible observer from the 1940s looking at the morals of the early 1900s. I think. Something like that anyway.

But it was all very exciting. There was a big open audition in my home city where 100s of people turned up and they chose 12 people who they thought would look good together and I was one of them.

I don’t mind Macbeth or Romeo and Juliet and I’ve taught these many times over but AIC just leaves me cold.

I liked it at school. As with everything it's a product of its time, we've moved on since he wrote it, since the time it was set in, and indeed the time I was at school.

I have seen the play in London but it was many years ago and I can't remember which production it was now.

I loved it at at school and again when ds1 did it for GCSEs. Now it’s ds2’s turn!!
I just hope that your obvious hate for it doesn’t seep out into your teaching.

DS had to do it for Eng Lit GCSE and thought it was boring. He also had to do Macbeth and Jekyll & Hyde. An Inspector Calls definitely appeals to be most out of those three.

Yep. DD hated it, and especially riled at the idea that this was her "modern" text. It's 75 years old!!

I know - it is a bit daft although compared to Shakespeare I suppose it is!

There are so many good potential texts, too.

@Evasmithsghost

I don’t mind Macbeth or Romeo and Juliet and I’ve taught these many times over but AIC just leaves me cold.

Well, Shakespeare is fucking brilliant, isn’t he?! I am not a teacher but I can imagine teaching Shakespeare year after year and always finding something new in the plays or the student responses to them.

Oh i loved it when I studied it for GCSE! We went to see the production in London where the set was like a cutaway view into the house, and the whole thing collapsed at the moment of revelation; I thought it was so cool. I did have a great teacher, though, which helped.

Loving the hints that it is my shite teaching

I love it! But, having taught English in the early 2000s I was surprised it was still on the curriculum when DS started GCSEs 15 years later! There must be something more modern they could use.

I saw the NT production and loved that too.

Don't like how Eric possibly having raped Eva is sort of glossed over but otherwise I think it looks at the part they've all played fairly equally.

I like it a lot, though I have never formally studied it.

It is a very clever and modern play (especially for the 1940s).

It is a searing indictment of the way the middle classes feel worthy with their philanthropy and investment, whilst simultaneously not noticing the harm they cause to those around them.

Just as relevant today as when it was written (if not more so).

No, it's tedious cobblers.

@Evasmithsghost wasn't implying you're a shite teacher! I was just lucky to have an English teacher than really inspired me and brought what I had viewed boring texts to life.