U.K.'s AN INSPECTOR CALLS to Take SHAWSKANK'S Place at Wyndhams Theatre

Variety is reporting that The Stephen Daldry-helmed revival of his 1992 production of An Inspector Calls, currently running in a limited engagement at the Novello Theater in the West End, will transfer to Wyndhams Theater in early December for a 16-week run. This move will fill the gapfor the theater created by the early closing of The Shawshank Redemption, as previously announced. 

The Shawshank Redemption, which transfered to the West End in September after a successful run at the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin, will play through its 100th performance on November 29. Initially, booking had been open through February 2010. Producers are now planning an expansive 2010 tour of the production, which will end at the Gaiety in Dublin.

An Inspector Calls is a three-act drama, which takes place on a single night in 1912,and focuses on the prosperous middle-class Birling family, who live in a comfortable home in Brumley. The family is visited by a man calling himself Inspector Goole, who questions the family about the suicide of a young working-class woman, Eva Smith (also known as Daisy Renton). Over the course of the evening, the entire family, under interrogation by Goole, are revealed to have been responsible for the young woman's exploitation, abandonment and social ruin, effectively leading to her death. Long considered part of the repertory of classic "drawing room" theatre, the play has also been hailed as a scathing critique of the hypocrises of Victorian/Edwardian English society and as an expression of playwright J.B. Priestley's Socialist political principles.

"Inspector Calls," produced by PW Prods., Kenneth H. Wax Ltd. and Oliver Royds, returned to the West End this season after a successful national tour of the U.K. The move is timely for Inspector, as they were slated to vacate the Novello in mid-November to accommodate the arrival of Debbie Allen's all-black production of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," which opens on Dec. 1.

For tickets, prices, and a complete performance schedule of An Inspector Calls at the Novello through November 14 and at The Wyndhams later this winter, visit www.aninspectorcalls.com