Synopsis:

The play was written in 1944 and had its debut in Moscow in the following year where it was an immediate success. Early English audiences claimed that the plot contained too much coincidence. "If only everybody wasn't involved in the girl's life and death", they said. The comment offended J.B.P., but Priory audience can make up its own mind.

All three acts, which are continuous, take place in the dining room of the Birling's house in Brumley, an industrial city in the north midlands. It is an evening in spring, 1912.

Arthur Birling, a prosperous factory owner, is delighted with the engagement of his daughter, Sheila, to Gerald, son of his business competitor.

As the dinner celebrating the engagement comes to an end, an Inspector calls. He is investigating the distressing death by poisoning of a young woman in hospital.

The dead girl was a one time employee in the Birling factory but was dismissed following agitation for higher wages. This was upsetting in the extreme but was it the cause of her suicide? The Inspector knows there is much more to it. There was the occasion when Sheila, annoyed, and jealous, complained about a shop assistant who, as a result, had to go. You're right of course, it was the very same girl now lying on the mortuary slab...

As the investigation proceeds, it is evident that Gerald is also involved. To the dismay of his fiancée he also knew the dead girl secret assignations and that sort of thing. We begin to wonder if it really was suicide, or was her death even more sinister?