Courtesy of Andyrob
Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap is famed as the longest running show in the world. Indeed, with over 23,000 performances since the early fifties, it has had a pretty remarkable run. And after seeing it the other evening at St. Martin’s Theatre, I can see why.
Set in a post-war guesthouse in Berkshire, a classic whodunnit murder mystery unfolds and a mixed group of guests – both odd and normal, young and old, male and female - are all suspects with secrets to hide.
The cast has chopped and changed over the years, with Lord Attenborough in the 1952 original cast and David Raven in the Guiness Book of Records for 4,575 performances as Major Metcalf. But despite cracking performances from the current cast, if not a tad overacted at times, perhaps the particular actors are not as important as the script and play itself.
Embracing a sense of British nostalgia and that warm fuzzy feeling you get from watching classic mystery TV such as Murder She Wrote and playing board games such as Cluedo (okay, so maybe that’s just me…) The Mousetrap at St. Martin’s (who have hosted the play for a whopping 34 years) has a simplicity of set and production that only serves to highlight the thrilling twists and turns of Christie’s plot.
A charming thriller.
P.s. an article in The Indy about the celebration of the 20,000th performance of the play in 2000.
