The Good Companions (musical) The Good Companions (musical) The Good Companions is a musical with a book by Ronald Harwood, music by André Previn, and lyrics by Johnny Mercer. It is based on the 1929 novel of the same title by J. B. Priestley. The plot focuses on the trials and tribulations of a touring concert party known as the Dinky-Doos who are stranded in the English countryside when their manager absconds with the most recent box office revenue and the lady pianist. Jess Oakroyd, an amiable man who has abandoned his shrewish wife, endears himself to the company with his homespun advice, and
An Inspector Calls It is she who opens the door to allow the Inspector into the Birling's lives, although she is often taken for granted and treated somewhat poorly at times, as if she were not actually there. Highly successful after its first and subsequent London productions, the play is now considered one of Priestley's greatest works, and has been subject to a variety of critical interpretations. After the new wave of social realist theatre in the 1950s and 1960s, the play fell out of fashion, and was dismissed as an example of outdated bourgeois "drawing room" dramas, and became a staple of