'THE MOUSETRAP' BY AGATHA CHRISTIE, A MUST IN LDN

Today, The Grandma has bought some tickets to see The Mousetrap in London's West End, a play written by Agatha Christie that opened at the Ambassadors Theatre in London in 1952.

The Mousetrap is a murder mystery play by Agatha Christie.

The Mousetrap opened in London's West End in 1952 and ran continuously until 16 March 2020, when the stage performances had to be discontinued due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

It then re-opened on 17 May 2021. The longest-running West End show, it has by far the longest run of any play in the world, with its 29,277th performance having taken place as of September 2023. Attendees at St Martin's Theatre often get their photo taken beside the wooden counter (showing a count of the number of performances) in the theatre foyer. As of 2022 the play has been seen by 10 million people in London.

The play has a twist ending, which the audience are traditionally asked not to reveal after leaving the theatre. The play began life as a short radio play written as a birthday present for Queen Mary, the consort of King George V. It was broadcast on 30 May 1947 under the name Three Blind Mice starring Barry Morse. The story drew from the real-life case of Dennis O'Neill, who died after he and his brother Terence suffered extreme abuse while in the foster care of a Shropshire farmer and his wife in 1945.

The play is based on a short story, itself based on the radio play, but Christie asked that the story not be published as long as it ran as a play in the West End of London. The short story has still not been published within the United Kingdom, but it has appeared in the United States in the 1950 collection Three Blind Mice and Other Stories.

When she wrote the play, Christie gave the rights to her grandson Matthew Prichard as a birthday present. In the United Kingdom, only one production of the play in addition to the West End production can be performed annually, and under the contract terms of the play, no film adaptation can be produced until the West End production has been closed for at least six months.

The play had to be renamed at the insistence of Emile Littler who had produced a play called Three Blind Mice in the West End before the Second World War. The suggestion to call it The Mousetrap came from Christie's son-in-law, Anthony Hicks.

More information: The Mousetrap

In Shakespeare's play Hamlet, The Mousetrap is Hamlet's answer to Claudius's inquiry about the name of the play whose prologue and first scene the court has just observed (III, ii). The play is actually The Murder of Gonzago, but Hamlet answers metaphorically, since the play's the thing in which he intends to catch the conscience of the king. Three Blind Mice or its tune is heard a few times during the play.

The play's longevity has ensured its popularity with tourists from around the world. In 1997, at the initiative of producer Stephen Waley-Cohen, the theatrical education charity Mousetrap Theatre Projects was launched, helping young people experience London's theatre.

The play's storyline is set at the present, which presumably means England as it was around the time when the play came out in 1952, including postwar continuation of World War II rationing.

Tom Stoppard's 1968 play The Real Inspector Hound parodies many elements of The Mousetrap, including the surprise ending.

As a stage play, The Mousetrap had its world premiere at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham on 6 October 1952.

It was originally directed by Peter Cotes, elder brother of John and Roy Boulting, the film directors. Its pre-West End tour then took it to the New Theatre Oxford, the Manchester Opera House, the Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool, the Theatre Royal, Newcastle, the Grand Theatre Leeds and the Alexandra Theatre in Birmingham before it began its run in London on 25 November 1952 at the Ambassadors Theatre.

It ran at this theatre until Saturday, 23 March 1974 when it immediately transferred to the larger St Martin's Theatre, next door, where it reopened on Monday, 25 March thus keeping its initial run status. The London run has now exceeded 26,000 performances. The director of the play for many years has been David Turner.

Christie herself did not expect The Mousetrap to run for such a long time. In her autobiography, she reports a conversation that she had with Peter Saunders: Fourteen months I am going to give it, says Saunders. To which Christie replies, It won't run that long. Eight months, perhaps. Yes, I think eight months. When it broke the record for the longest run of a play in the West End in September 1957, Christie received a mildly grudging telegram from fellow playwright Noël Coward: Much as it pains me, I really must congratulate you...

In 2011, by which time The Mousetrap had been running for almost 59 years, this long-lost document was found by a Cotswold furniture maker who was renovating a bureau purchased by a client from the Christie estate. By the time of Christie's death in 1976 the play made more than £3 million.

More information: The Guardian

The original West End cast included Richard Attenborough as Detective Sergeant Trotter and his wife Sheila Sim as Mollie Ralston.

Since the retirement of Mysie Monte and David Raven, who each made history by remaining in the cast for more than 11 years, in their roles as Mrs Boyle and Major Metcalf, the cast has been changed annually. The change usually occurs around late November around the anniversary of the play's opening, and was the initiative of Sir Peter Saunders, the original producer. There is a tradition of the retiring leading lady and the new leading lady cutting a Mousetrap cake together.

The play has also made theatrical history by having an original cast member survive all the cast changes since its opening night. The late Deryck Guyler can still be heard, via a recording, reading the radio news bulletin in the play to this present day. The set was changed in 1965 and 1999, but one prop survives from the original opening -the clock, which sits on the mantelpiece of the fireplace in the main hall.

In May 2001, during the London production's 49th year, and to mark the 25th anniversary of Christie's death, the cast gave a semi-staged Sunday performance at the Palace Theatre, Westcliff-on-Sea as a guest contribution to the Agatha Christie Theatre Festival 2001, a twelve-week history-making cycle of all of Agatha Christie's plays presented by Roy Marsden's New Palace Theatre Company.

Performances at the St. Martin's Theatre were halted on 16 March 2020 with all other West End shows due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom. 

The Mousetrap re-opened on 17 May 2021 after 14 months without performances.

More information: Official London Theatre

 Crime is terribly revealing.
Try and vary your methods as you will,
your tastes, your habits, your attitude of mind,
and your soul is revealed by your actions.

Agatha Christie