McGann Stars in NT s Inspector Calls on Tour
Date: 24 August 1999
The Royal National Theatre's award-winning production of JB Priestley s 1946 classic An Inspector Calls, directed by Stephen Daldry, kicks off a national tour today. The three-month tour, which stars Mark McGann and runs concurrently with the West End production at the Garrick Theatre, opens at Guildford's Yvonne Arnaud Theatre 24 August 1999 and continues to a further 13 theatres throughout the UK.
Following its opening at the National in 1992, An Inspector Calls transferred to the Aldwych Theatre in the West End for two years before embarking on an extensive international tour including Australia and New York. The current West End production is now in its fifth year at the Garrick Theatre. Along the way it has won a grand total of 19 awards, more than any other play in history.
Written at the end of the second World War and set before the first, the thriller takes us into the comfortable and complacent world of the prosperous Birling family during a night's celebration. They are interrupted by the arrival of a mysterious police inspector who brings with him startling revelations about the death, in which everyone is implicated, of a local girl.
McGann plays Inspector Goole. Part of the notorious McGann clan of acting brothers, Mark McGann s credits include, on television, The Hanging Gale and The Grand and, on stage, Lennon, Up on the Roof and Blood Brothers. In January 1999, he released a single, 'A Heartbeat Away', with his brothers, Joe and Stephen.
McGann is joined in the cast by Tim Frances, Helen Franklin, Denis Lill, Ryan McCluskey and Marjorie Yates. An Inspector Calls is designed by Ian MacNeil, with lighting by Rick Fisher and music by Stephen Warbeck. Following Guildford, An Inspector Calls visits Cambridge, Bath, Sheffield, Cheltenham, Reading, Swansea, Wolverhampton, Bromley, Stoke, Plymouth, Bradford, Blackpool and Aberdeen.
