The set, throughout the play hardly changed, except for when the odd rain fell which gave the cobbled street a damp effect. The backdrop was of a fiercely clouded sky. The whole set was set roughly just after the Second World War. I could tell this from not only having read the program, but also because the set on whole looked like a bombsite. The house however was set in the Edwardian times because of its designing and shape. Once the actors starting stepping out and I saw what costumes they were wearing, the idea that the inside of the house and everybody in it was set roughly around the time period of 1912. The set reflected both these time periods well in the play. The set designer Ian MacNeil had done very well in creating an eerie, bomb blitzed set to help set the atmosphere of something bad going to happen.
I was concentrating specifically on two certain characters that seemed to grab my attention – Sheila and the Inspector. The Inspector came on before Sheila and it was his manner of speaking which grabbed my attention. He spoke not like a usual police inspector but had a much more mysterious character to him. Throughout the play it seemed obvious to me that he couldn’t be a real inspector. He was too rude towards each of the suspects, seeming to have made Mr Birling his number 1 enemy by being louder towards him and constantly losing his patience. There were some parts in the play where the inspector was in that I enjoyed. For example the way in which he questioned each of the individual character in his own order and time. Although he was more interrogating than usual police inspectors, his change in volume kept me awake and well into the play. He had a very mysterious facial expression at the start, but whenever he got so mad and impatient, his face turned red as an erupting volcano and he looked like he was about to crack! His costume of a simple trouser suit and a hat made him (looking at his appearance), look more like a detective rather than an inspector but I didn’t like him movements. He kept pacing a lot and making a lot of arm movements. At one point in the play the inspector (played by Niall Buggy), got so angry, which drove him to stripping off his jacket of his suit!
The first time Sheila appeared she looked beautiful dressed in a long white dress and her hair nicely put up. However all changed when her turn came to be interrogated by Inspector Goole. She realised that Goole evidently knew what wrong she had done. I liked the fact that she performed her confession to us, the audience. This made us feel more part of the play than I thought we already were. Her facial expression showed how full of remorse she was about the death of Eva Smith and her manner of speaking also showed her regret and pity. Before she was clean, dressed in white and hair all nicely done – the perfect bride to be, but, once finding out what she had done wrong her dress became dirty from being dragged across the wet, cobbled street and her hair was down and messy. I noticed that change in her appearance showed a rich, spoilt girl become average like any other.
Overall, I enjoyed the play and loved the set. The background music added to the atmosphere and as the music changed so did the atmosphere. Both Ian and Stephen (set designer and director) created a surreal effect throughout the play. When the house toppled over causing objects to smash about I wondered how on earth the house would be restore. But, after the departure of the inspector the house was re-instated. All the actors portrayed each character well in both, movement – actions and voice. I was impressed to find that both the time periods were put together and that with one set throughout the play gave a more realistic look overall.
