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!

The mini house was the one I saw, and one of the actors, dressed as a tramp, was collecting money from outside for charity.

Amazing how many of the audience walked extra quickly to get away from him, not even noticing it was one of the actors…

The moral lesson clearly lasted as long as the play!

Dd loves AIC - it was her favourite text at school in English. She also loves Macbeth .

I think when you teach something over and over though it does become tiresome, regardless of what it is

@TheReluctantPhoenix

The mini house was the one I saw, and one of the actors, dressed as a tramp, was collecting money from outside for charity.

Amazing how many of the audience walked extra quickly to get away from him, not even noticing it was one of the actors…

The moral lesson clearly lasted as long as the play!

I love this ...

OP, if you start a petition to get Noises Off by Michael Frayn on the curriculum for the "modern text" instead, I'll sign it and march for the cause. Or The Play That Goes Wrong, but Noises Off is better.

I did it in the 1980s - my DD has just finished in in 2020. Can you honestly tell me no one has written a play in 40 years that is more relevant and appropriate for our times today. I'm with you OP it needs ditching - in fact the whole curriculum needs updating!

@Embroidery

Do you have to teach it? Can you not teach another play? Are there only three plays in the English language? Inspector Calls, Macbeth and I can't even remember the third?

They have to study

• a Shakespeare text. Most schools do Macbeth or R & J, but I’ve known some do The Tempest.

• a nineteenth century novel. Nearly every single school does Jekyll and Hyde or Christmas Carol.

• a modern text. Nearly everyone does AIC.

• poems.

I enjoy teaching it every year- 16 years now! It is a very English play. In NI the class system is less pronounced and it helps pupils understand the difference between upper and middle and working class and the Tory and Labour party as we have a v different political system here. We also discuss the themes of suicide and consent so v topical.

Just be glad you never had to study/teach the utter BILGE which is the Cone Gatherers. Was on the Higher English syllabus when I did it in 1990, still on it now. And it's just awful.

Christ, I'm 61 and we did this dire text. Although I took DD (now 18) who was also doing it, to a theatre performance and it was brilliant. Plays should be watched, not read, inc Shakespeare

It amazes me that it is still being used, I look back on it with nostalgia as we studied it(along w it h Of Mice and Men which I hated) but I would love to see newer texts coming in.

I wasn’t a huge fan of it when I did it for GCSE back in 2000, as PP have said I think the themes are a bit obvious. I can see why it’s a set text though.

I saw the NT version whilst studying it. Brings back a lot of memories of school trip coaches!

@Cleebope2

I enjoy teaching it every year- 16 years now! It is a very English play. In NI the class system is less pronounced and it helps pupils understand the difference between upper and middle and working class and the Tory and Labour party as we have a v different political system here. We also discuss the themes of suicide and consent so v topical.

this is good to hear

@Evasmithsghost

Dickens is practically the definition of dead white man, so I’m not entirely sure that works, *@MrsHamlet*!

I meant Mockingbird 😂 Goveyboy banned that...

*They have to study

• a Shakespeare text. Most schools do Macbeth or R & J, but I’ve known some do The Tempest.*

I used to teach Julius Caesar. Now we're only allowed to teach one play to the whole school and it's Macbeth. Because witchcraft is much more relevant to teens than backstabbing mates.

- a nineteenth century novel. Nearly every single school does Jekyll and Hyde or Christmas Carol.
We don't.

Why oh why is AICs still being read? Of all the magnificent plays available? It's an opportunity to spark a lifetime of passion for theatre, culture, plays, words etc.
Bloody awful for you and the students.

People keep saying the themes are a bit ‘obvious’.

It is not a murder mystery, it is a polemic on the looking down on and ‘othering’ of the less well educated, who are good for servants and factory workers (and sex), but whose personal circumstances barely impinge upon your consciousness.

Just spend a few hours in EC2 or around Sloane Square and you will realise it is still totally relevant and in no need of an update.

I liked it at school, although we studied it 3 times for some inexplicable reason so it was rather boring by the end.

Dc have/are currently also both studied it for GCSE. DS1 hates reading with a passion. But he really liked AIC and was happy to sit and read it/write about it. So for that reason alone it has a soft spot in my heart. (Along with Horrid Henry and the Boogie Babysitter and The Hunger Games trilogy)

I absolutely knew you'd be an English teacher from your title.

Yanbu from one English teacher to another!

@Evasmithsghost
That’s not quite what every exam board specifies you have to do…
We do a 20th novel, not 19th C

We do study Shakespeare and IAC though.

*20th C

Goveyboy banned that...

Michael Gove banned TKAM????

Why??????

Also find it a bit weird when people question it ‘still’ being taught… The main criterion for a literary text is not its newness!

How is "modern" defined? Twentieth century or later?

@DrSbaitso

Goveyboy banned that...

Michael Gove banned TKAM????

Why??????

Only liked British writers... don't get me started!