#arthur birling

[unsuspicious-nobody]

I type 4 Eva on the groupchat and they think I mean forever when I actually mean for Eva Smith from an inspector calls who deserves better

[krunchycrispy]

Why I would direct every character in a An Inspector Calls play to wear red and what it would represent in key scenes

For a quick breakdown, I’ll explain who these characters are in this 1912 setting in the order the plot is revealed.

Eva Smith: a young working class girl who committed suicide after many encounters that broke down her life. She is never shown, but she is arguably the most important character in the play.

Mr Birling: A middle class man who owns a factory line. He hires women in particular because he knows he can pay them less. He started this chain reaction leading to Eva’s death when he fired her for being one of the key leaders in a strike to get him to pay his workers an extra 2 pounds. Upon learning his involvement in Eva’s death, he rejected his responsibility.

Sheila Birling: a young woman and the eldest of the Birling children. She is engaged to Gerald and while she is used to the expectations she would have as a woman, she is portrayed to stray away from those ideals slightly, especially by the end of the play were she insists that change is needed. She went to a clothing shop Eva worked at after being fired by Mr Birling. Sheila tried on dress after it was modelled on Eva, and she was jealous of her (Eva’s) beauty. Feeling overwhelmed, Sheila insisted that the manager fired Eva when she thought she was being laughed at for trying on the dress. When learning of her involvement in Eva’s death, she was distraught and took the responsibility on immediately.

Gerald Croft: A higher class man from old money, and Sheila’s fiancée. He had met Eva when she was on her last penny and under a new name, and housed her for a while. It evolved into him having an affair, whether or not Eva knew he was taken is left unanswered. But she was in love with him and when he cut ties her heart was broken. When discovering his involvement, Gerald was also distraught that she was dead. When it looks like he goes out on a walk and will take responsibility, the next time we see him he has a theory that nobody died and they were all interacting with different girls. So in the end he hasn’t changed.

Mrs Birling: Mr Birling’s wife (obviously). She is as old fashioned as her husband, but she is one of the runners of a charity to help women in need. When Eva came to her with a pregnancy under a new name, the younger woman claimed to be a Mrs Birlin. The real Mrs Birling was immediately biased and turned her away knowing her position. Not only that, but she reached out to other charities just so Eva couldn’t get any help at all. When learning of her involvement, she immediately blames the rest of the cast, and mainly Eva and the father of the pregnancy. But it immediately turns on her.

Eric Birling: a young man who works at his father’s factory (in a higher up position). His relationship with his father isn’t the best, and he drinks a lot and even objects to Mr Birling’s views multiple times throughout the play. One night, he met Eva when he was drunk, and says he didn’t know what happened but he felt he did something he wasn’t proud of (this scene implies many things, but points strongly towards him SAing her). While they met a second time, Eva quickly found out she was pregnant. At the time pregnancy outside marriage was looked down upon, especially towards women. Eric tried to do the right thing, stealing money from his father’s office to support Eva, and even offering to marry her. She denied, recognising that he wasn’t yet mature enough to take on something so intense. When he learns of what he has done, he is angered by how his mother turned Eva and her pregnancy away, and he is angry at himself for not knowing what to do. Like Sheila, he takes responsibility and recognises society’s ways are flawed.

So the timeline for these events in Eva’s life are:

Fired by Mr Birling -> fired from her last job by Sheila -> met Gerald and got her heart broken -> met Eric and ended up pregnant -> went to Mrs Birling’s charity for women and got turned away. Then she ended her own life.

Now back to the red.

I want every character to have a form of red on them. While my research says 1912 fashion leaned more towards colours like salmon, greys, beige and blues, red is associated with evil and intense things, like blood and the devil, and the unusual colour against the more softer clothing would stand out to the audience. I’m looking at blood specifically because of Eva Smith’s suicide and how the cast all link into it.

Mr Birling could perhaps wear a red vest, Mrs Birling could wear a red accessory like a necklace or earrings. I want Sheila to have her engagement ring specifically to be red (more on that later). I’m thinking maybe Gerald has a red handkerchief sticking out of his pocket. Perhaps Eric has a red tie on, or even a red vest like his father. I want Sheila, Gerald and Eric in particular to have something easily removable. This is all to represent how they have Eva Smith/Daisy Renton’s blood on their hands, and how they are at guilt and to blame.

Priestley (the one who wrote the play) was a socialist, his experiences of living in the 1910’s and throughout the war into the 1940’s horrifying him of how everyone was pushed down by society’s way of living and the blatant sexism and classism. After WW2, Priestly knew he had a 1945 audience he could influence. He knew that after the war left everyone scared and wondering how to move on, he could communicate that everyone needs to abandon their old mindset.

He translates this through Mr and Mrs Birling, and their children/future son in law, Eric, Sheila, and Gerald. Why does this link to my choice of making them wear red? I mentioned I want the younger, and easier to influence generation to have their dashes of red to be easily removable to represent the change in mindset the younger generations of the 1940s were taking on after the war.

When Sheila gives Gerald their engagement ring back, and claims they’re not the innocents they thought they were, she displays maturity. She isn’t guiltless, but she is removing her red, Eva’s blood, and accepting she needs to take responsibility.

When Eric’s actor leaves the stage to take on a more disheveled appearance and show how rough the character feels, I want him to also remove his own red vest, showing that while he at first he meant to take responsibility for his actions with Eva and didn’t know how, he now knows he has to own up to it openly. He also takes off his dose of Eva’s blood as he takes the first step to redeem himself.

When Gerald leaves after his monologue due to how distressed he is, I want him to remove the red handkerchief to wipe at his face. Maybe sweat or tears. I want the audience to think that when he returns, the red will be gone and he will take responsibility like his monologue led him up to. But when he bursts in at the end of the play to proclaim his theory that it all doesn’t matter, and they haven’t driven a girl to end herself and that makes their past actions okay, the red is still there. Maybe tightly gripped in his hand to show that he is still holding onto the belief he shouldn’t be held accountable. He cheated on Sheila, he broke the heart of two women. But he still tries to give Sheila her bloody engagement ring back, to tell her that her actions also don’t matter. The younger generation is slowly changing their ideals, but there is still a lot to do.

Mr and Mrs Birling insist their innocence to it all throughout the entire play. They are still holding onto their more corrupted views, and refuse to change a single thing, so they don’t take any of their red aspects off.

That concludes my choice in costume design. Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope you enjoyed my rambling about potential tiny details :)

[ultcrackshipskirmish]

Round 1: Brason (Jason Grace x A Brick) vs Bir-cler (Arthur Birling x Once-ler)

No photo for Bir-cler sadly if you have one please send it via asks

[an-inspector-balls]

eat up children - 🥧

[deschainartnerd]

You all helped to kill her

[aninspectorcalls]

"ARTHUR BIRLING is a heavy-looking, rather portentous man in his middle fifties, with fairly easy manners but rather provincial in his speech."

Mr. Birling is wealthy, and comfortable in his life, but he does not come from a high class family - shown by his "provincial" speech. This presents him as the embodiment of the middle-class capitalist ideal.

[novuit]

I'm grieving so badly over the quotes I remember that I never got to write down, so I'm going to draw a bunch of doodles with the quotes I still remember before I thankfully forget it forever. And to the people doing gcses right now, let's celebrate the end of having to memorise quotes from british plays by getting sloshed over champers and then drink more seeing as we have more exams this week!!! :D

(Edexcel gave us easier questions than I thought, I don't know what I was so worried about, hahah...)

[khorazir]

A yellow car at Birling Gap. Arthur Shappey would call that brilliant!

[can-of-w0rmz]

My English teacher’s been off for a long while so we’ve had a good load of substitute teachers, and one of them is teaching us An Inspector Calls and can I just say, is so much less dry than my actual English teacher. I’ll be real, classic lit nerd though I may be, I don’t like that play. Honestly can’t really stand it. But we’re leading a hate campaign against Gerald Croft now? Hell yeah I’ll write an essay for you on him let’s get this bitch! You give me those quotes and references on why he’s a dick I barely paid attention to his character but it’s drama now and I have personal beef with him let’s go

[o-uncle-newt]

For everyone excited about Good Omens S2 and particularly Muriel:

If you haven't yet LISTEN TO CABIN PRESSURE! As of right now Muriel is striking me as somewhat of a female version of the Cabin Pressure character Arthur Shappey, who is a) one of the great fictional characters of all time and b) not only played by but also of course written by the phenomenal John Finnemore, who ALSO co-wrote Muriel! And indeed, that scene from NYCC is incredibly Shappean, or should I say Finnemorean. Cabin Pressure incidentally also has some incredible plotting (including mystery plots like the Birling Day episodes), hilarious jokes, brilliant character development and possibly the number one ending of all time. Also perfect found family vibes!

Basically, once again I am SO glad that JF was brought onboard for the comedy side of Good Omens 2 and the “kind of quiet and gentle and romantic” vibe that Gaiman mentions in this is so up his street it's not funny. (Also the specific JF anecdote Gaiman brought up in the NYCC panel was quite frankly very reassuring to me.) I am incredibly excited for this!

(Also listen to the rest of JF's stuff- his Double Acts has 1.75 half-hour rom coms, Hot Desk and Penguin Diplomacy, which may stop just short of the CLEARLY inevitable ending but otherwise has impeccable vibes, some of which are actually very Good Omens-esque. And Souvenir Programme is genius, with S9 a totally different kind of genius that I personally found incredibly impactful, as fellow listeners can tell from the fact that I subsequently named my Tumblr and AO3 accounts after quotes from it.)

[spaceradio]

Cabin Pressure episode tournament - more polls at #cabin poll

Limerick - S2E6

An interminable flight with a very baffling cargo gives the crew the opportunity to pass the time by alternately opening their hearts up to each other and persuading Arthur not to play charades.

Edinburgh

It's the highlight of Douglas and Arthur's year - taking nice old boy Mr Birling on his annual day-trip to see the final Six Nations match, and get heroically sloshed. Martin, however, has difficulty working out what they see in him.

[placetnemagistra]

Just need to shout derangedly about the Cabin Pressure / JSFP allusions in Good Omens 2, please add your own!!

Yellow Bentley — yellow car

Aziraphale as the incompetent detective / newspaperman with a Clue — the Birling Day episode where Arthur & Martin incompetently investigate Douglas’s theft of the Tallisker

Crowley ordering a large Tallisker — also Birling Day

A number of JSFP sketches where people who are total opposites are thrown together for long periods of time (eg the wildlife cameraman who doesn’t like snow leopards and the gay leopard Professor who absolutely adores them) or are bickering/unlikely but devoted spouses (the train driver and the train manager; the “Don’t Know Much About History” song sketch) - it’s a whole dynamic!! It has prepared him for this assignment!! (As has the practice of people being irrelevantly but cheeringly gay)

[cabinpressurechallenge]

hello everyone! pleased to present the 2022 Cabin Pressure advent listenalong! beneath the cut are the prompts for the episodes, which i will post every day but this is a headstart if you want it!

the first episode will be Abu Dhabi on the 29th, which is next Tuesday and you're welcome to join in however you fancy - write! draw! make liveblog posts! i would absolutely love to coordinate a live listen again, but my timezone has now become problematic. that said, i still propose that if we want to gather at around 6 or 7pm GMT, either on discord or on tumblr or whatever, we'll see what we can do about having a group listen.

any questions or comments please just shout! okay, bye! love the airport!

29th Abu Dhabi

a missing scene: The run up to Carolyn calling Martin a berk

a word: ice

a question: Who is your favourite character?

30th Boston

a missing scene: Douglas’ conversation with ATC

a word: home

a question: What’s your favourite Arthur moment?

December 1st Cremona

a missing scene: Arthur and Martin in the Garibaldi

a word: nuts

a question: What’s your favourite Douglas moment?

2nd Douz

a missing scene: Douglas and the cricketers

a word: big

a question: What’s your favourite Carolyn moment?

3rd Edinburgh

a missing scene: Martin giving Mr Birling the hat

a word: maps

a question: What’s your favourite Martin moment?

4th Fitton

a missing scene: Arthur and Douglas in the flight deck

a word: rain

a question: What’s your favourite episode?

5th Gdansk

a missing scene: Previous games of itemised lists

a word: salt

a question: What’s your favourite word game?

6th Helsinki

a missing scene: Arthur’s holiday scheming

a word: gift

a question: Which is your favourite series?

7th Ipswich

a missing scene: Martin and Douglas revising 

a word: pool

a question: Who’s your favourite minor character?

8th Johannesburg

a missing scene: Arthur and Martin’s golf buggy conversations

a word: shade

a question: Who is your favourite friendship?

9th Kuala Lumpur

a missing scene: Arthur rehearsing his story for Martin

a word: service

a question: What’s your favourite ship?

10th Limerick

a missing scene: Carolyn and Arthur creating poetry

a word: sunset

a question: What’s your favourite MJN family moment?

11th Molokai

a missing scene: Christmas in Hawaii

a word: cracker

a question: What scene makes you laugh the most?

12th Newcastle

a missing scene: Playing Trivial Pursuit

a word: games

a question: What’s your favourite Herc moment?

13th Ottery St Mary

a missing scene: Martin twisting his ankle

a word: river

a question: What’s a scene you know by heart?

14th Paris

a missing scene: What’s Carolyn up to during all the nonsense?

a word: glass

a question: Which Birling Day is your favourite?

15th Qikiqtarjuaq

a missing scene: Arthur giving bear lectures

a word: facts

a question: How did you get into Cabin Pressure? 

16th Rotterdam

a missing scene: Martin practicing his speech

a word: honey

a question: What are your favourite Cabin Pressure fics?

17th St Petersburg

a missing scene: discussing the plan

a word: names

a question: what’s a scene that makes you cry?

18th Timbuktu

a missing scene: Arthur’s preparations for Birling Day

a word: colours

a question: What’s your favourite piece of CP fanart?

19th Uskerty

a missing scene: Herc receiving the sheep

a word: drinks

a question: Do you like anything else by John Finnemore?

20th Vaduz

a missing scene: Carolyn and Theresa meeting

a word: dragons

a question: What’s your favourite Theresa moment?

21st Wokingham

a missing scene: Arthur and Wendy’s adventures

a word: puzzles

a question: If you could change something about CP what would it be?

22nd Xinzhou

a missing scene: Stuck in the traffic jam

a word: waiting

a question: What would your dream CP revival episode be?

23rd Yverdon les Bains

a missing scene: Martin telling Theresa he got the job

a word: capsized

a question: Which part of CP do you find most relatable?

24th Zurich

a missing scene: OJS’ first flight

a word: gold

a question: What does CP mean to you?

[an-inspector-balls]

my magnum opus - 🥧

[garfieldbussys]

clo this isnt funny anymore.

arthur is deteriorating in front of my eyes and i dont like it what is happening right now i dont know if i can handle this its so sad

what does campbell have against this poor policeman hes always having a go at him its unreal

ALSO wait hang on whats poll doing also tommys found her kids OH NO HER DAUGHTERS DEAD POLL IM SO SORRY ☹️

ANYWAYS i cannot WAIT to finish this cause that means i can go on a rampage of reading fics SO excited

poll ily but put the gun down babe ik youre hurting but babes anyways they’re opening the garrison again since it was blown up last ep ALSO finn is SO grown up its crazy

finns talking to arthur i have a feeling this isnt gonna go well NO NO NO FINN NOT DRUGS PLEASE FINN DO NOT I SWEAR YOURE KIDDING ARTHUR NO

oh no hes fucking high off his tits isnt he 😐 ffs

why do i have a feeling another bomb is gonna go off idk i just feel like smth really bad is about to happen- hes got graces letter out hes burning it good to know i wont be seeing her again then

ADA BABY YOU MADE IT 🫶🫶

i think shes come to speak to poll shes so drunk i LOVE drunk poll shes so funny shes dancing with some guy

could you imagine if this guy ended up being her son that would be HORRIFIC cause it looks like they just had like 4 rounds tbh

why are blackcurrent soothers so good like???

HAHA POLLS DOING THE WALK OFF SHAME

ITS HER SON

hang on is that- IS THAT ERIC BIRLING FROM AN INSPECTOR CALLS OR AM I BUGGING

anyways thats it for ep 2 onto ep 3

i love ada so much and i love in fics where she’s like the best big sister ever i just can’t

and you finally watching arthur like crumble in front of your eyes is so upsetting i actually hate season 2 for him it’s so upsetting

no because finn is like 14 why is 6foot ?!?! what have the shelbys been feeding him??

LMAO THE UNIVERSAL experience of watching eric birling appear on your screen as the iconic polly gray’s son 😭😭