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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to hate An Inspector Calls?

193 replies

Evasmithsghost · 07/10/2021 16:18

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!

OP posts:
Alpacinoshoohaa · 07/10/2021 21:57

Omg also adore silas marner.
I adore the part where the hair shimmers like his gold! Having in laws obsessed by money it permeates every second of conversation even when we tried to show Mil some baby stuff they cut us off to talk money, it really reminded me of this.
They also shrugged thier own son off, my dh due to material things and now they are reaping that.

MrsHamlet · 07/10/2021 21:58

I taught Anita and me the first year. But then hod reduced choice to AIC and LOTF. Now it's down to AIC only.
I used to teach the stage play of the woman in black for coursework.

WildImaginings · 07/10/2021 22:04

I too had a wonderful English teacher.
I still absolutely HATED AIC!

Not as much as I hated The Mayor of Casterbridge for A Level though. Christ that was absolutely awful. Elizabeth Jane and Donald Farfrae can fuck off.

DoctorSnortles · 07/10/2021 22:04

Love teaching AIC. All the kids understand it, they all get embroiled in discussing the issues raised and I think it's a useful text for teaching about the creation of the welfare state and the NHS and the changes in society wrought by WW2. It's a shame you don't like it, OP, as your lack of enthusiasm will wreck it for your students.

lateralblow · 07/10/2021 22:05

I saw it in 1995 on a theatre studies trip and loved the stage version with the collapsing house. Is that the national theatre version people are referring to?

lateralblow · 07/10/2021 22:06

I'm still bitter about being in the top set for English Literature and having to study Silas Marner when the next set down got to do To Kill A Mocking Bird.

MsJuniper · 07/10/2021 22:07

I studied it in the '90s and saw the NT production. Absolutely loved it and it has stayed with me. I was so surprised the see the recent EduTwitter battering it got. I guess it has been around a while but I still think the themes are relevant and not much has been written that presents ideas in that way.

I'm a primary teacher so feel the same way about Mrs Cole and the poor beleaguered mother.

fingersdoublecrossed · 07/10/2021 22:08

@TheReluctantPhoenix

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).

Totally agree.
ScrambledSmegs · 07/10/2021 22:14

Bloody Gove. Loads of the texts I studied at GSCE and A-Level were written by Americans. Studied A Streetcar Named Desire, Of Mice and Men, the Handmaid's Tale, the Custom of the Country (Undine is awful in the most fascinating way). Presumably Becket is persona non grata too, being Irish?

I think another class in my year studied Death of a Salesman and To Kill a Mockingbird. Honestly, all these incredible works of art, off the syllabus because of one little-Englander? It's a bloody crime.

ScrambledSmegs · 07/10/2021 22:15

FFS. *Beckett.

JoborPlay · 07/10/2021 22:16

I liked it when I did it at school but I've read it since and produced a stage version and now can't stand it!

Alpacinoshoohaa · 07/10/2021 22:19

Why should just American texts be studied??.
What about French authors, balzac, zola, what about the anead, the classics. All seems very narrow to me indeed.
My dd has been given a beautifully broad list to read, old and modern texts and a variety of authors and countries (but still no balzac etc)

AttaGirrrrl · 07/10/2021 22:22

@Alpacinoshoohaa

Why should just American texts be studied??. What about French authors, balzac, zola, what about the anead, the classics. All seems very narrow to me indeed. My dd has been given a beautifully broad list to read, old and modern texts and a variety of authors and countries (but still no balzac etc)
She’s not doing those for GCSE though is she? IB?
Carrotsandbroccoli · 07/10/2021 22:26

@lateralblow

I'm still bitter about being in the top set for English Literature and having to study Silas Marner when the next set down got to do To Kill A Mocking Bird.
Grin #humblebrag
Walkinginawingingwonderland · 07/10/2021 22:26

Despised everything about it and nearly refused to take my English Lit GCSE because of it.

Lottie2017 · 07/10/2021 22:27

I actually enjoy teaching AIC too, but I disagree that there isn't much to Blood Brothers. Students were regularly producing A* level work on it, were really engaged and there were lots of themes/discussions to have.

Walkinginawingingwonderland · 07/10/2021 22:28

@lateralblow

I'm still bitter about being in the top set for English Literature and having to study Silas Marner when the next set down got to do To Kill A Mocking Bird.
Same! But had totally forgotten until you said that.
lateralblow · 07/10/2021 22:29

Lol Carrotsandbroccoli, if it helps at all I was considered thick as fucking pigshit at GCSE (probably due to undiagnosed ADHD), the only thing I was good at was reading and I only passed my maths GCSE because my parents sent me on a gestapo style crammer course the Easter holidays before.

Carrotsandbroccoli · 07/10/2021 22:30

@Alpacinoshoohaa

Why should just American texts be studied??. What about French authors, balzac, zola, what about the anead, the classics. All seems very narrow to me indeed. My dd has been given a beautifully broad list to read, old and modern texts and a variety of authors and countries (but still no balzac etc)
But for ENGLISH literature, I think the text has to be in English, and studying texts in translation is a whole other ball game 🤷‍♀️
Davros · 07/10/2021 22:32

@DerAlteMann

Did it at school. Hated it then and still do. Don't get me started on Silas Marner.
Jaysus I remember that. Not fondly
User478 · 07/10/2021 22:37

It can't get taken off the syllabus! Every theatre would have to rehearse a new play! You can put on AIC or OMAM or Under Milk Wood (in Wales) for almost nothing and guarantee you'll get a couple of schools to fill up seats as well as parents taking their kids who don't get to go as a school trip. Instant money, do it every year almost no need to invest any time/effort!

AIC is good because it is so unsubtle that you don't need to spend much time interpreting it, anyone can memorise the phrases needed to jump through an exam board hoop. English Lit (like pretty much any school subject) isn't about loving the subject it's about memorising the requirements for the mark scheme.

(I'm sure you're a wonderful and inspiring teacher.)

MurphyBhoy · 07/10/2021 22:44

I did this at school but can't remember much which probably isn't a good sign. We also did lord of the flies and to kill a mockingbird which I loved.

I hated English despite being good at it but the choice of text makes a huge difference. For higher we started with a crappy teacher who picked (to my mind) dreadful poems - Church Going by Larkin I think it was and I wanted to give up. We then switched teacher, did Daddy by Sylvia Plath and I suddenly had something I could write about.

ducksalive · 07/10/2021 22:45

We did mice and men and death of salesman as well as AIC.

Death of Salesman I particularly enjoyed and we saw it on stage as well.

ducksalive · 07/10/2021 22:48

The poems were awful, Norman MacCaig was particularly bad.
The poems did have the plus that learning them wasn't hard which helped in exams.

2ndMrsdeWinter · 07/10/2021 22:56

I feel the same way about Jekyll and Hyde. I could effing weep every time I turn a page.

Also, your username proper tickled me @Evasmithsghost.