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Chapter Text

Act 1

Lighting is bright and free (sorta white) to represent One sunny day in March however when the inspector arrives it turns red and haunting. At the beginning the Birlings are chit chatting with one another waiting for their deliveroo delivery. (Use code IDontPlayGolf1920 for 20% off!) whilst seated around the table in their dining room.

Mrs Birling: Goodness, isn't it warm today!

Mr Birling: Yes, BBC announced a red weather warning.

Sheila: Really? I’ve been sweating my makeup off.

Eric [snarkily]: We know, I can smell it from here.

Sheila: Shut it geek -

Mrs B: Children!

Mr Birling: The delivery driver needs to hurry up! Next time we are using JustEat.

Mrs Birling: [well timed doorbell noise] I HEAR THE DOOR!

Mr Birling: Sheila, darling, could you please get that?

Sheila: [pulls out a new iPhone, and talks through the doorbell] Ya could you just leave it on the doorstep, thanks.

Edna: [Happily] Sure! Also btw there’s there is this psycho chad at the end of ur drive.

Sheila: Oh, don’t worry, it’s just my boyfriend!

Edna: oops.

Mr Birling: God, people these days are so happy, when they are all victims of consumerism and pyramid schemes, not that I’m complaining seeing as I’m the one profiting off them. [Privileged chuckling]

Sheila: Don’t put it like that! It’s truly horrible, but at least my followers get jealous since I get all the expensive clothes as a cause of there gullibility.

Mrs B: I prefer not to think about all this, as long as we keep on rolling in the cash I don’t care.

[Ominous knock on the door]

Shelia: [on her phone] Come in the back way Gerald, and bring the food, I’m famished.

Gerald: Sure.

Mr B: Gerald, wonderful to see you, did you bring the food?

Gerald: [placing kfc bag on table] yes, right here, you look beautiful Sheila, is it the new primark jumper everyone’s raving about?

Sheila: Yes! Daddy gave it to me this morning!

Gerald: I’m wearing the new Next collection. I’ve never worn something so stylish!

Mr B: [insulted] Oh ho ho, I wouldn’t be so fast, Primark on top.

Mrs B: [Tiredly] Oh come on now, let’s not argue about trivial matters like this when we have a much more pressing matters to discuss.

Eric who has seized the food between his long, bony phalanges begins to pass it round the congregation.

OMINOUS DOORBELL NOISE

Mr B: By Jove, who could that be?!

Shelia: [On phone] My good sir, what would you be doing calling at my humble abode.

Inspector: I am here to enquire about an incident that occurred this afternoon.

Sheila: [Panicked] GREAT HEAVENS, I suppose you better come in then, we’re just in the dining room, open the door and straight through.

The inspector enters, quietly but clearly confident.

Mr B: Well good afternoon, Mr……

Inspector: Goole, Inspector Goole.

Mr B: Very nice to meet you, and excuse me for asking but why are you here?

Inspector: I’d like some information, if you don’t mind, Mr Birling. Two hours ago a young woman died in the infirmary. She’d been taken there this afternoon because she’d swallowed a lot of strong disinfectant. Burnt her inside out, of course.

Mrs B: Sheila, Eric, Gerald go away, we need space for this detrimental grown up matter.

Sheila: [like an iPad kid being ripped away from their screen] BUT MUMMMMMMMMYYYYYY!

Mrs B: No buts, this could be some r18 type violence we don’t want to mentally disturb you.

Inspector: No, I would rather they stayed, I have reason to believe they are involved in this matter.

Mr B: You heard the man, where are you going, you incompetent grass cuttings, sit down and listen to the police. 

The ensemble sit down

Mr B: Well go on then, I haven’t got all day.

Inspector: [Sternly] I would like to speak to you first, sir. See this girl [Shows him a picture without letting the others see] Did you, or did you not employ her in Primark in 2016.

Mr B: Oh yes, 2016, business was booming I was making six figures-

Inspector: [Cutting in] But did you hire her.

Mr B: Bit rude 😡 but I suppose so, yes, but what has this got to do with anything?

Inspector: And why did you do that?

Mr B: She was a bad worker, never did good enough, In my opinion I gave her too much leeway she deserved to be fired well before.

Inspector: [Questioningly] Is that all she did? Work badly?

Mr B: No she caused a strike, apparently I was paying her too little according to the “cost of living crisis”! 

Inspector: Are you really that incompetent, people are struggling to survive with the cost of housing and food.

Mr B: Well I think of myself as rather fluid, changing with the times! 

Inspector: Well, Mr Birling, it seems you may have the fluidity of a brick.

Shelia: Father! Did you really do that? Refuse giving her money?

Mr B: Girls like her don’t deserve money, they're poor for a reason. Undereducated, worthless slum

Sheila: Oh please don’t, they’re just people, like me and you they deserve empathy and compassion and-

Mrs B: Oh, do be quiet Sheila.

Mr B: But I still don’t see how this is my fault

The lnspector sighs

Eric attempts to leave the room, vape clutched in his left hand, his knuckles going white.

Inspector: No, don’t leave. I need to ask you some questions too.

With a withered sigh Eric sits back down and takes a hit of his blue raz elf bar.

Eric: Yes, Inspector?

Inspector: Do you happen to know what happened after she left Primark

Eric: Who? The Girl? No.

Inspector: Does this help? [Whipps out picture]

Pure shock stuns him into silence

Eric: [Rather sadly] Eva?

Mrs B: You knew her!!

Eric: She used to work in the call centre I supplied my tech to.

Mr Birling sighs unhappily and shakes his head, disapproving of Eric’s job

Inspector: And what did you supply to the company?

Eric: Just some AI sort of, to cut down on wages.

Sheila: Oh god, don’t tell me.

Inspector: Your tech replaced her job, she was once again jobless, with nowhere to go in a cost at living crisis.

Everyone is shocked into silence

Gerald: And what did she do after, It can’t be Eric’s Fault!?

Curtain falls

Chapter Text

Act 2

Tense atmosphere continues as the curtain rises but ends when it’s at the top because it’s not ever that deep.

Inspector: I believe Sheila will have the answer to what happens next.

Sheila: Me?! I could never :0.

Inspector: Maybe this could help you remember [flashes picture across her sightline]

Sheila: [shook] Ihr?! Mein gott!

Eric: Ich bin dein gott.

Mr B: [chastising] No German at the dinner table!

Inspector: So I assume you do know what I’m talking about, now fess up before I make you 

Sheila: It was one day, last summer. We were in Italy waiting in the line for a model job. I saw her in front, she was stunning and I knew that she was the one -for the job and for me. Long story short, she got the job instead of me and to say the least - I was quite jealous.

Inspector: Thank you for making my job easier, I didn’t come here to get in a fight. But was that all?

Sheila: [lugubriously] Oh how horrid I was, she didn’t deserve it now she’s dead.

Inspector: Yeah, shame. Burnt out on a slab because of you

Eric: [taking a hit of a raspberry lemon vape, acquired from the depths] wenig gemein

Mr B: [pressed] What did I say about German at the dinner table?!

Inspector: I have a feeling you did something after too.

Gerald: With the girl?!

Sheila: Who else? but yes, I took her home and we had a nice night

Inspector: Doing what?

Mr B: Not much I hope.

Sheila: HOMOPHOBE.

Mrs B: Just so you know, we support you, as long as you didn’t cheat on Gerald

Sheila: And so what if I did, it’s not like he didn’t too

Stunned silence

Mr B: Gerald?

More silence

Mrs B: [Calmly] Eric, leave this is a personal, family matter.

Eric: [Mumbling] Wieso kümmert es mich.

Eric exits stage left ((because he’s a socialist)(I think))

Sheila: [Confusedly] He’s genetically related to me? What do you mean 😭 

Mr B: [flatly] He’s adopted.

Mrs B: [placatingly] Hes not, we just don’t like him.

Inspector: Now what do you have to say about this Gerald

Gerald: [astounded to Sheila] you knew!

Sheila: [hissing, like an enraged cat] yes [not sadly, she doesn’t care] I’m breaking up with you.

Sheila exits

Inspector: [Nonplussed] my condolences, but I really do need to know more about your relationship.

Gerald: It was a sweet one, I fed her and we would chat for hours about oh so wonderful things it really was a dream. But then one day she reported my secret tumblr account and so I called up some of my connections and got rid of her.

Inspector: And did you feel remorse about this?

Gerald: I had to 

Inspector: But you got her blacklisted, so you must have cared.

Gerald: It’s just like crazy golf! You care whether you’re losing while you are playing but as soon as you get home you realise it was never that serious.

Inspector: [dryly] I don’t play golf.

Gerald: [slaps his knee] Shucks!

Mrs Birling Enters

Mrs B: [unbothered] You’re still here?

Inspector: [smiling politely] Nope, trick of the light. Mrs Birling, could you tell me what you know about this girl. [shows her the picture, but angles it so nobody else can see]

Mrs B: [imprudently] Hmm, rather ugly just like when I saw her last.

Inspector: Do you have something to tell me, Mrs Birling?

Mrs B: I suppose, she came to the council last week to get some council housing, which naturally I refused.

Eric: Mother!

Mrs B: [ignoring her husband and child] Well what else was I meant to do when she comes in all high and mighty saying ‘Im Mrs Birling give me a house I’m poor and dying’

Inspector: [mildly fazed] I don’t know? Maybe give her a house? 

Mrs B: [as stressed as a mother of four] We don’t have any! The government is in shambles we don’t have any!

Eric: Yes you do?

Mrs B: [affronted] Shush!?

Inspector: Does it make it morally right, this poor dying woman who sleeps on the street and eats your rubbish for brunch?

Mrs B: Maybe?? 

Inspector: Are you dim? 

Sheila: [Sheila itches her knee] 

Mr B: Well this is awkward :/

the inspector coughs as the curtain falls

Chapter Text

Act 3

the curtain rises steadily and with pace but then slows as the inspector coughs again

Sheila: What if this is a hoax.

Eric: [appears from the wings] BY GUM YOU COULD BE RIGHT.

Inspector: Controversial but maybe actually.

Mrs B: I told you it wasn't our fault, the damned child set us up like a camping chair that collapses when you sit on it. 

Mr B: [chuckling, but with a bit more pizazz seeing as he had just taken a hit of Eric's vape] Exactly.

Inspector: So I'd better be off then. [he clears his throat to give him more vocal clarity but then promptly has a coughing fit which lasts for exactly 31,000 milliseconds because 31,000 is the number of calories in a gallon of petrol and that's pretty sick I guess] 

Mr B: But how are we supposed to know if it's a hoax??? 

[The inspector had already left by that time so it was rendered useless by the family that's this information had been shared, but it's here because we need a bigger word count on our essay to be super epic and cool 😎] 

Mrs B: Don't worry darling, it's not the end of the world. 

Mr B: It is if I lose my job (I- I lose my job - iykyk). 

Sheila: [distressed] Oh no, but I love my free clothes!

The end :0