Take your teens to “An inspector calls” by J B Priestley at Richmond Theatre

Parents with 13-14 year olds (year nine) will know that this play is on the curriculum and that our kids spent several weeks reading the script and analysing what it all means a few months back. Tonight, at Richmond theatre, the play started a week long run – and it seems that school kids had been bussed in from far and wide. And I must say that they were all beautifully behaved throughout and appeared to enjoy the performance immensely.

My daughter and I took our seats just before it started at 730pm – remembering the conversations we had had about the play when she had studied it. There was a dramatic start – some children with torches, booming music and smoke – and the emergence of the incredible set – dark, stormy, night time sky behind a cleverly constructed house (exactly how you imagine it to look) which was raised a little from the main stone-cobbled floor. And then it rained! Real rain! Impressive!

And while children played and servants went about their business, we could hear the merriment inside the tiny house as self-made man Arthur Birling and his rather grandiose wife Sheila Birling celebrated the engagement of their haughty, spoilt daughter Sheila to full-of-himself Gerald Croft while their public school educated son Eric made the most of the wine. After a toast, the men smoked their cigars on the balcony and Arthur confides to his well-spoken future son-in-law that he is hopeful of a knighthood. All is well in the Birling household it seems.

And then Inspector Goole (Tom Mannion) arrives on the scene – suitably dressed in a trench coat, trilby and loose pin-striped suit and with a marvellous Scottish accent and an attitude that will shake at first the boastful confidence of the dinner party guests – and then their whole lives. Literally. He allows the events leading to the horrible suicide of Eva Smith/Daisy Renton that evening to unfold while asking each dinner party guest to explain their contribution to the poor girl’s demise.

The acting is really rather good – whilst Tom Mannion plays the archetypal cool and clever detective, Karen Archer (playing wife Sybil) does self-righteous with aplomb and Henry Gilbert (as Eric) does upper class, silly and self-indulgent convincingly. The argument between Sheila (Kelly Hotten) and Gerald (John Sackville) has perfect timing and credible emotion. Yet throughout the tense exchanges and the dawning of the awful truth there is sufficient comedy (a lot of which is provided by maid Edna (Janie Booth)) to allow the audience regular chuckles to break the tension a little.

The set and stage design was one of the best I have seen at Richmond – the house literally unfolds (with a spiral staircase) so that we feel as if we are moving from outside to inside and back again. There are some fight scenes and a final – jumpy and loud – climax (and I feared that the broken crockery and scattered cutlery would injure members of the audience in the front stalls) which was close to theatre genius. Even the dresses worn by the two leading women are worthy of a mention.

On the journey home we talked further about the staging and its meaning. We talked about the various interpretations – even the importance of understanding the consequences of our actions even when we believe that we are acting reasonably and justifiably. Even the socialist message about workers’ rights got through without it being too obvious.

This is a classic thriller and the production company did it proud. I have seen the play several times before – on occasions in the West End - and thought that it was amongst the best that I have seen. And my daughter was thoroughly impressed with it. So if you wish to prise your teens away from Facebook and Xbox for an evening, help them with their GCSE English and provide a thoroughly engaging theatre experience – I suggest you try to secure one of the few remaining tickets for this show – I’m told that they are nearly sold out. Deservedly so – one of the best plays I’ve seen for a while.