As the curtain rises, mist envelops the stage and there's a derelict telephone box with smashed-in windows.
Children appear with torches surveying a scene of apparent wreckage.
The setting is more akin to a comic book horror story, which stops short of wolves howling above a full moon.
But elevated from all this is a warm, well-lit home where the clinking of glasses, laughter and celebrations can be heard.
Talk also echoes of a prosperous business, political ambitions and future marriages - a world apart from what appears to be happening below.
But it will all come crashing down.
J. B. Priestley's An Inspector Calls landed at The Lowry theatre last night with director Stephen Daldry remaining committed to the text but tossing the traditional Edwardian drawing room drama setting out the window.
If you've seen it before, then you haven't seen it like this.
What was supposed to be an engagement party quickly becomes a dark night of the soul for a family all-too pleased with themselves.
Their personal cataclysm begins with a knock at the door - a police inspector has arrived, informing them that a woman has taken her own life and he has some questions.
As the evening unfolds, ghostly children stalk the stage as silent judges while the inspector - apparently in cahoots with the apparitions - exposes the Birling family for who they really are, and the horrifying consequences of the choices they have made.
Characters morally collapse and reform, only to fall into ruins again - with the set doing the same in parallel. The quality of the production and the intelligence of its stagecraft is genuinely striking.
But what's most unique about the production of this well-trodden play is that director Daldry is almost conducting a play around the edges of the play itself, with down-on-their-luck folk stalking the stage.
They quietly observe. They aid the inspector when necessary. And as the story unfolds, they haunt you.
It makes you consider that maybe to say An Inspector Calls is an impactful socialist parable does it a disservice.
This truly is a horror story.
An Inspector Calls is playing at The Lowry until January 14. For more information click here.
