J.B Priestley's time travel play comes to Brighton loaded with awards for its original director Stephen Daldry.

Daldry, director of Billy Elliot, the film which won more than 40 awards including an Oscar nomination for Best Director, has now received Golden Globe awards for his latest film, The Hours.

He is a hot Hollywood property but Daldry sees himself as a theatre director who will do films.

He said: "Theatre is really all I have ever known and I want to stay with it for as long as possible. When Richard Eyre signed me for An Inspector Calls, it was my big breakthrough."

Daldry was just 29 then and wanted to direct the play but could not find anyone to hire him.

He said: "I had big ambitions. Luckily Richard Eyre took a chance with me and we opened at the National Theatre in 1992. It is still running in London.

"The play is a compelling thriller. It was written in 1945 and largely set in 1912.

"The inspector travels back to warn the family what the world has in store for them.

"What I did was to get rid of the idea of Priestley as the pipe-smoking father figure and writer of safe plays.

"He was far more radical than that politically and was very much an experimental dramatist.

"Priestley, too, had problems getting the play put on in 1945. It was seen as controversial and was put on first in Moscow, with Priestley travelling to Russia to see it.

"I tracked down the original London stage manager and discovered the stage directions in the printed text were not written by Priestley. This was a campaigning piece of theatre, a plea for a brave new world, with special support for single mothers."

Nicholas Day, who plays the inspector, says: "This is an intensely theatrical production, the first time it has been done like that.

"Most productions you could film straight and put them on television. Here you are never allowed to forget you are in the theatre. It is mind-blowing stuff.

"It is pretty relevant too. I come from 1945 to tell the 1912 family what is going to happen, in that case two world wars. And here we are at a time when a new war may be just round the corner.

"I have only just joined the tour and I know some theatres are selling out of tickets quickly. Priestley seems out of fashion these days and I must admit I am not a great fan but with this he excelled anything else he did."