It's also an iconic part of London's cultural life, if not for critical acclaim then for sheer persistence, having reliably entertained West End audiences for over 70 years. So when London Theatre Week recently offered cut-price tickets I thought it was about time I booked a seat at St Martin's Theatre and experienced all the spoilers for myself.
The Mousetrap started out as a 30 minute radio play on the BBC Light Programme on the evening of 30th May 1947. It was specially written by Agatha Christie for Her Majesty Queen Mary on the occasion of her 80th birthday, and was originally titled Three Blind Mice. If you'd been listening to Much-Binding-In-The-Marsh on the Home Service instead you'd have missed it. Later that year it was adapted as a 30 minute play for BBC Television, then in 1948 reworked as a short story for American readers of Cosmopolitan magazine. Christie subsequently decided it might make a good full-length play so set about writing the stage version which made its debut at the Theatre Royal Nottingham on 6th October 1952. It's been running ever since.
The title The Mousetrap is lifted from Hamlet, the change of name required because there'd already been a play called Three Blind Mice in the West End a few years before. The rights to the play were gifted by Christie to her grandson Mathew Pritchard on the occasion of his ninth birthday. She thought it might run for 14 months tops whereas in fact it's proven to be one of the best birthday presents ever, and Mathew still runs a charitable trust promoting the arts in Wales on the proceeds. She also stipulated that no film version could be produced until the show had been closed for six months, which of course it still hasn't, so if you want to discover the plot your only options are to read all the spoilers on Wikipedia or turn up in person.
To see it in person you need a seat at St Martin's Theatre in Covent Garden, just across the street from The Ivy restaurant. The Mousetrap first arrived at the Ambassador's Theatre on 25th November 1952 after a brief provincial tour taking in Oxford, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Leeds and Birmingham. It played there until March 1974 when over the space of a weekend it transferred nextdoor to St Martin's Theatre where it's been playing ever since. Technically the pandemic forced a pause in March 2020 but The Mousetrap was the first West End show to reopen the following spring and officially its opening run continues. Not only is this a record-breaking debut it's also by far the longest run of any play anywhere in the world, and even in its 73rd year The Mousetrap is still raking them in.
My ticket was for the Upper Circle which it turns out has an unfortunate initial downside. The wooden board in the foyer that shows which number performance this is, alongside which many audience members like to grab a selfie, is only accessible to those with seats in the Stalls or Dress Circle. I was instead ushered up a curving side stair to a bank of precipitous seating, a lot higher above the stage than you'd imagine judging by street level outside. And the place was absolutely packed, the handful of empty seats explained by sickness and no-shows rather than any lack of interest. A fair proportion of the audience were tourists judging by their accents, but it was a matinee performance so a substantial number were grey-haired couples and pensioner friends from the suburbs, and as an under-60 patron I felt somewhat in the minority.
The Mousetrap is a one-set play, that set being the hall at Monkswell Manor, an isolated country guest house in the wilds of Berkshire. The first couple we meet are Mollie and Giles, the newlywed proprietors hoping to make a go of the place and nervous of who their first guests might be. It's also snowing outside which means the scene is set for a classic lock-in murder mystery, and which also keeps the stage hands busy dropping flakes past the hall's lattice windows. As various characters turn up, not all of them anticipated, Christie skilfully weaves a complex tale out of seemingly not very much. Some characters seem pure cliche while others are more compellingly complex and may not be all they appear on the surface. The script is also well sprinkled with comedic moments, indeed it's quite some achievement for a play steeped in 1950s sensibilities to still be making audiences laugh in the 2020s.
Only eight actors are required and none of them are big names, each cast signing up for a six month stint on the understanding that the play's the star. The current lot includes one who's done The Play That Goes Wrong, one that's done Hollyoaks, four who were in Doctors and one who was a Slytherin bully in the first Harry Potter. The latter is Alasdair Buchan who as an 11 year-old put on an amateur version of The Mousetrap at school only for his headmaster to receive a cease and desist letter from the show's West End producers. Thankfully this didn't count against him when he joined the cast three decades later, and his depiction of Mr Paravicini (the mysterious foreign stranger) was one of the play's comic highlights.
The interval comes one hour in, immediately following the inevitable, and it was good to get a chance to stretch my legs. I liked my seat because although it was high up it had a really good view of the stage, the lady sat in front of me being quite small. It was also immediately alongside the exit which is where the usherette emerges with her obligatory tray of ice cream tubs. The current going rate is £4 for the 125ml Mini Tubs or £5 for the 180ml Upsell Tubs, and I was surprised the lemon sorbet didn't sell better. She also had £6 programmes to sell, these smallish but also fairly thick because a 73 year-old play has quite a backstory to be elaborated. In a nice touch if you take your programme to the bar they'll officially stamp it with the performance number and then you've got a proper souvenir on your hands.
In the second half things become more complex and various threads start to unravel. Coincidence overplays its hand, as in so many murder mysteries, and obvious red herrings occasionally turn out to be nothing of the sort. Christie faithfully delivers the ensemble finale where everyone sits down to hear everything explained, then throws in a twist or two which would have felt hugely original in 1952 even if it's been overdone since. And at the curtain call a member of the cast steps forward to urge the audience to keep the identity of the murderer secret in keeping with the spirit of the whodunnit, as has become traditional, and thus far over 10 million people have generally agreed. I'm certainly revealing nothing, so please don't be the smirky plonker in the comments who spills the beans or drops a lumberingly-obvious hint.
Sitting beside the exit had one final benefit in that I was out on the street before the rest of the theatre disgorged so was able to get a clear view of the wooden board in the foyer. And wow the count was now at 29983 performances, a phenomenal total, and incredibly close to a proper quadruple-zeroed milestone. The Mousetrap's 10,000th performance was way back on Friday 17th December 1976, a few months after Agatha Christie's death, and the 20,000th was on Saturday 16th December 2000. Apparently the 30,000th will be the evening show on Wednesday 19th March 2025, less than a fortnight from today, so steel yourself for a burst of publicity celebrating the amazing success of the world's longest running play. Did you ever see such a sight in your life? See how they run. See how they run.
