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 Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap is still in fine working order and going strong after 60 years and around 25,000 performances, a record that stands as the longest run of any play of any kind in modern history. It has become a British institution, on a par with Westminster Abbey and Big Ben as far as tourist attractions go, and the run at its current home, St Martin’s Theatre in the West End, is coming up on its 38th year.
Why The Mousetrap has survived and thrived for so long is almost as much of a mystery as the play itself. Like the undertones in the plot, the enduring attraction for viewers has something to do with complicated human nature as well as pure entertainment value. As with all of Agatha Christie’s plays and novels, there are elements of comedy along with strong hints of darkness; here they are woven together so skillfully that they create a two-hour gem of a production.
The Mousetrap originated as a short play for BBC radio in 1947, written as an honorarium for the late Queen Mary’s 80th birthday. It was actually based on a true story about the death of a boy in foster care at a farm in Shropshire. Christie wrote the full-length play later, and at the time of its production, she is quoted as saying it would probably have an eight-month run.
The plot is quintessential Christie, with a cast of only eight characters in a tightly confined situation.
All the action takes place in the Great Hall of Monkswell Manor, a guest house run by a young, newly married couple, Giles and Mollie Ralston. In the opening scenes we find out that there’s been a murder in London and the Ralston’s first four guests arrive, all with plausible references – and all with secrets.
In a few hours a snowstorm makes the roads impassable. Another guest turns up on foot claiming his car overturned in a snowdrift, and finally Detective Sergeant Trotter arrives on skis, reporting that the murderer is headed in their direction and may be already there. Then one of the guests is apparently murdered, and everyone is under suspicion.
At every performance, the audience was asked to keep the identify of the killer a secret and not reveal the ending to anyone who hadn’t seen the show; it wasn’t until 2010 that an article from The Independent gave it away in print.
After the last of the original cast members retired from the show, at the instigation of the original producer, Sir Peter Saunders, the entire cast is changed each year, usually around the anniversary of the play’s opening in November. Saunders was largely responsible for The Mousetrap‘s incredible longevity; he is the one who suspected that the play could become an icon of Christie’s talent and ‘Englishness’ in general.
As of today, there is still one voice from the original cast: the radio news bulletin read by Deryck Guyler (now deceased). One prop, the clock above the fireplace mantel in the Great Hall, is the same one that appeared in the first production.
Popularity: unranked [?]
 ‘Gavin and Stacey’ star James Corden is set to make the difficult transition from theWest Endto Broadway with his critically-acclaimed performance in the comedy ‘One Man, Two Guv’nors’.
However, it’s not all good news for the Corden clan as the April opening inNew Yorkmeans that James has had to delay plans to marry his fiancée Julia Carey, who he proposed to on December 25 in 2010. Although the couple had not officially set a date, they had been expected to tie the knot this summer; instead, James, Julia and their son, Max, will be spending a few months living inNew York.
Corden added that he was delighted that his family were able to come with him to the States, as that will help ease the pressure everyone is under, wondering if the very British production will translate to theUSstage. Although the couple have been keeping any wedding plans under wraps, Corden did admit that he would love David Beckham to be his best man on the big day, while the actor has let a few things slip about what song could accompany their first dance.
Rather surprisingly, Corden has confessed to being something of a fan of teenage star Justin Bieber and X-Factor’s One Direction, conceding that his musical taste is definitely cheesy but that he is more interested in stars that seem to have fun on stage than those who like to appear cool.
Popularity: 1% [?]
 Audiences are expected to flock to the big-screen adaptation of Michael Morpugo’s successful children’s novel “War Horse” when it opens this week at cinemas across the country. Directed by Steven Spielberg and featuring acting stars from acrossEurope, the film has already received rave reviews from many critics.
One man who is not so impressed by multi-million dollar productions, however, is Sir Nicholas Hytner, artistic director atLondon’s National Theatre. The NT has been thrilling audiences for years with their own adaptation of the novel, and it was the success of the play that inspiredHollywoodto make their own version of the story.
Hytner believes that the theatrical version will end up making more money than the big screen adaptation, with “War Horse” already making millions of pounds for the National Theatre through tickets and merchandising.
The impresario also revealed that the NT will even make money from the Spielberg film as they have a small stake in the film. Although the theatrical rights and the film rights were sold in completely separate deals, the Oscar-winning director wanted to use aspects of the play in his film and offered the National Theatre a cut of the profits in return for their cooperation.
The play “War Horse” has been seen by more than one million people since it opened almost five years ago, and Hytner added that the NT will be putting on performances of the show until at least the start of 2013 and probably longer.
Profits generated by “War Horse” have allowed the innovative artistic director to put on less profitable shows that have been critical successes, with the NT reporting an income of over £70 million in 2010/11, half of which came from theatre tickets. Although the National Theatre lost over £2 million in funding from the Arts Council this year, Hytner insisted that amount is more than covered by the £3 million generated by “War Horse” every year.
Popularity: 1% [?]
 While performances of the likes of Sleeping Beauty and Snow White are traditional pantomimes that offer typical English festive entertainment, this year there’s a new kid in town who’s proving to be a huge hit. Crowds are flocking to see Matilda the Musical, a jazzed up version of the famous novel by Roald Dahl that is now playing to packed houses in the West End.
This new production from the Royal Shakespeare Company has been proclaimed by critics as the best British musical to hit the stage for years. Despite the fact that the majority of the cast is under the age of 16, this show is certainly not only for the kids.
Matilda is a very unusual girl; she is a bookworm with abusive parents and a headmistress who can only be described as a battleaxe. Whilst all this sounds mightily depressing, the little girls determination to avoid repression is wowing the audiences. For this adaptation, the RSC hired Dennis Kelley, the British playwright, to adapt the novel for the stage, and top Australian comedian Tim Minchin wrote the music and the lyrics.
Anyone who is familiar with the work of Minchin will already know that music plays an essential role in his comedy. There is, however, a huge difference between putting together a 60 minute comedy routine and a full length musical that is telling a story, but Minchin said that he was ready to take on this great challenge.
He said that he loved the idea of spending 2 years making a kids story into one that would make both kids and adults laugh and cry, and as he was writing the 17 song score he realised how much he had in common with Roald Dahl. He said that the author liked to muck about with words, did stupid rhymes and was a bit naughty, all of the things that he himself did in his comedy routines.
Matt Wolf, who is a writer for the International Herald Tribune, says of Minchin that his approach was exactly what London critics and audiences had been looking for. He also says that audiences were tiring of Andrew Lloyd Webber and revivals. Wolf says that hiring Minchin was totally out of the field as it was incorporating the world of Australian comedy into a show that was quintessentially English on so many levels.
Anybody who wants to adapt any of Dahl’s work for either stage or screen must first get permission from hi widow, who has set a strict criteria. Despite the success of Matilda, Amanda Conquy, the MD of the Dahl estate says that at first they were cautious about giving the go ahead.
She says that this is due to the fact that they had been very busy with films being developed over the past 10 years, and has always steered clear of musical because they had an incredible capacity for going badly wrong. She says, however, that they were glad they had taken the risk with this production, and that everyone was delighted with its success.
Popularity: 4% [?]
 A play is to take to the stage in the West End that has been written by, and will star, a company of injured servicemen and women who wrote it as part of their long roads to recovery. The sailors, soldiers and Royal Marines, all of whom were injured in the line of duty, will be treading the boards of the Theatre Royal, Haymarket in a show that is being backed by the actor Ray Winstone and directed by theatre master Sir Trevor Nunn.
The play is entitled ‘The Two Worlds of Charlie F’ was written by the playwright and author Owen Sheers in collaboration with the troops. It draws on their long journey through from basic training to their combat is such places as Afghanistan and Iraq, and their ongoing battles coming to terms with life changing injuries. The 32 members are all part of Bravo 22 Company, and are still serving member of the armed forces.
The various injuries throughout the group range from post traumatic stress disorder to a double amputee. This theatre project is aimed at helping the servicemen and women re-enter civilian life. The shows producer is Alice Driver, from Masterclass, the in house charity of the Theatre Royal, and said she got the idea after to talking to a surgeon from Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital where injured troops get specialist care.
Ms Driver stresses that this is in no way just some kind of airy fairy therapy, but a genuine opportunity for a band of sick, wounded and injured soldiers and Marines to work in a top class theatre to write, produce, perform and light their own play. She added that when you are injured you lose self confidence and belief, and that this group are telling her that the whole experience has given them their voices back.
Popularity: 1% [?]
 Greta Scacchi and Anita Dobson are going to be performing again as Joan Crawford and Bette Davis as they go on tour as Bette and Joan by Anton Burge. The play tells the story of two actors who are at the low point in their career and they meet on the set of the film. Unexpectedly the film becomes a massive success and propels the two stars back into the spotlight. The play was performed first in May last year and ran for a month as it was just on a limited run.
Now the play is going to go on tour and is going to be starting in Guildford in March this year at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre. After this it is going to be moving to Richmond, Darlington, Malden, Cambridge, Swansea, Northampton, Bromley, Coventry, Truro and Brighton. The tour taking in all of these places is going to take nearly 4 months and the production is going to finish on 2 June in Brighton.
Anita Dobson was performing at the Edinburgh fringe last year in Oedipus by Stephen Berkoff. One of best performances, however, was on the West End in Calendar Girls by Tim Firth, this production took place at the Noel Coward Theatre. Her previous credits include having the title role in Hello Dolly As Well as Thoroughly Modern Millie which was on at the Shaftesbury Theatre.
The latter of these productions was in 2004 and won an award from Whatsonstage.com. Despite these theatre performances she is probably best known for her role in Eastenders, where she played Angie Watts, the alcoholic co-owner of the Queen Vic pub, a role she held until 1988. Greta Scacchi has recently been involved in a production of Private Lives as well as the West End play Uncle Vanya.
Popularity: 1% [?]
 There are many unusual places where theatrical performances have been held over the years, but none are perhaps as innovative as the artistic decision to put on a production of the classic “The Railway Children” actually inside Waterloo Station.
A section of the station, where Eurostar trains used to depart to the continent, has now been transformed into an unusual theatre with seats for over 1,000 people. Tickets bought for this show direct audience members either to ‘Platform One’ or ‘Platform Two’ depending on which side of the tracks, now used as a stage, that they are seated.
Families attending recent performances of the celebrated children’s novel are welcomed into a make-believe world from the very beginning of their experience at Waterloo; the current box office is actually housed in what used to be the station’s terminal building and an impressive Victorian-style bridge crosses the “tracks” allowing cast members to move effortlessly between sets.
The production, which stars actors from the York Theatre Royal, stays true to the original storyline. Even children who are too young to have read the novel, by Edith Nesbitt, or even to remember the definitive screen version, starring a young Jenny Agutter, are enchanted by the sheer magic of the Waterloo performances.
Although the setting is spectacular and the cast all put on excellent performances, the star of the show is undoubtedly the real train which pulls into the station for the play’s final scenes, accompanied by clouds of steam and gasps of amazement; in fact, it is the same steam engine that also featured in the tearful final scene of the famous 1970 movie.
The story and the play both follow the story of the Waterbury family, consisting of three young children and their mother, who go to live in the Yorkshire countryside after their father is put in prison – a fact that is concealed from the children throughout.
Set in Victorian times when trains were still a novelty, the nearby railway line becomes the centre of country life for the brother and two sisters, and the stage show even manages to include the infamous and dramatic scene in which eldest daughter Roberta prevents one of their beloved trains from crashing.
Fourteen-year-old Connor Garnett-Comerford from Sonning, who has already made a number of small appearances on television shows, is enjoying his first role on theWest Endstage, even though he is only playing one of the minor roles. Despite taking his turn in the role of Fred several times a week, Connor is managing to keep up with his homework and is full of praise for the support he gets from his teachers and friends at Reading Blue Coat School.
The main children’s roles in the play are actually played by adults, as if the characters are looking back over their lives and adventures, a decision taken by director Damian Cruden which creates elements of unexpected humour in the production. Youngest daughter Phyllis especially, portrayed here by adult actress Grace Rowe, delivers many of her lines with such a childlike innocence that Mums and Dads in the audience cannot help but laugh.
Since moving to its new London home, “The Railway Children” has been a big hit with audiences in the capital and is proving a popular alternative to the Christmas pantomime.
Popularity: 2% [?]
 London’s theatre district is facing a bit of a conundrum with the Summer Olympics coming up. According to the European Tour Operators Association, it looks like there will be a combination of low demand, low availability and high prices – not an encouraging picture. Based on a survey of its members, the ETOA says that bookings for tours during the Olympics have taken a nose-dive; they are down by an average of 90% for that part of the summer.
Tom Jenkins, ETOA’s executive director, told The Stage that there are several factors involved. He said that most people tend to avoid visiting a city where some huge event like the Olympics is going on (unless of course they plan to attend the games). They figure the place will be booked solid with game-goers, and they’re right; so the average tourist wanting a tour of the ‘highlights’ is going to avoid London for that reason.
Mr. Jenkins also noted that the hospitality industry in general is gearing up for the influx of a million extra guests during the games, so they aren’t saving room for ‘regular’ tour groups, and if they do have space left it will be at premium prices.
All this may boil down to very low attendance at theatres in the West End. It has been reported that the Really Useful Group is thinking of closing down its shows, including Phantom of the Opera, while the games are on. However, many other productions are scheduled to continue through the summer, and the president of the Society of London Theatre, Mark Rubinstein, said his organization and many others are working together to keep London’s theatres open and encourage Olympic visitors to attend.
The general feeling seems to be that anyone who visits London and doesn’t take in a West End show is missing one of the city’s brightest jewels. This is undoubtedly true, and it won’t hurt that theatre tickets are likely to be available at discount prices, designed to lure sports fans (and everyone else) to a West End performance.
Popularity: 6% [?]
 Matilda has made the transition from Stratford-upon-Avon to London’s West End with perfect aplomb, and it is getting yet more enthusiastic reviews from all directions. Australian comedian Tim Minchin wrote the songs and playwright Dennis Kelly adapted the script for this musical version of Roald Dahl’s classic children’s book by the same name.
The show ran from December 2010 to January 2011 at the Courtyard Theatre in Stratford, and was named Best Musical of the Year at the Evening Standard Awards. Theatre Awards UK named Matilda Best Musical Production and Bertie Carvel (in drag) Best Performance in the role of sadistic headmistress.
Matilda‘s story is about a gifted and spunky schoolgirl who is being ‘raised’ in a home environment of disinterest and even verbal abuse, whilst attending school where a mean-spirited and downright vicious headmistress goes way past verbal abuse in her treatment of Matilda and her classmates.
Another teacher at the school, Miss Honey, tries to intervene only to be stymied by both the headmistress, Miss Trunchbull, and Matilda’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Wormwood, who refuse to acknowledge Matilda’s advanced and precocious abilities. Matilda retaliates with such ‘naughty’ behaviour as super-gluing Mr. Wormwood’s hat to his head and dumping a jug of water-with-newt on Miss Trunchbull, but the punishment always far outweighs the crime.
The show does, finally, have a happy ending, but on the way there is plenty of conflict and a sense that not every story ends up on that note. Matilda is also full of dark humour, wonderful music and lyrics and an underlying feeling of joy and magic. It appeals to both children and adults, making it one of the season’s best family offerings and a treat for any theatre-goer.
Critics across the board have given Matilda rave reviews, and comments like “exhilarating”, “thrilling”, “glorious” and “stonking” are flying about in a whirlwind of praise.
Popularity: 4% [?]
 All New People is a West End production that has been written by Zach Braff and he has said that it has been a long-time dream of his to star in a production in the West End. Braff is most known for appearing in the hit US comedy Scrubs. The production will also be being shown in Manchester and Glasgow before it starts a two-month run at the Duke of York’s Theatre.
Braff has commented, “I’ve always wanted to be in production in the UK and living in a foreign country has always been a dream of mine. I never thought that I would be lucky enough to be starring in a play on the West End, let alone one that I’d written myself, I feel incredibly honoured to be given this opportunity.”
The play has already had a sell-out run in New York and it is directed by Peter Dubois. The play tells the story of a man who is 35 years old and has hit rock bottom. He wants to spend his birthday alone but this is made impossible by a string of bizarre characters who insist on changing his plans. In the US Justin Bartha was in the role of Charlie but Braff will be taking over the role for the production that is coming to the UK this February.
Popularity: 4% [?]
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Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap is still in fine working order and going strong after 60 years and around 25,000 performances, a record that stands as the longest run of any play of any kind in modern history. It has become a British institution, on a par with Westminster Abbey and Big Ben as far as tourist attractions go, and the run at its current home, St Martin’s Theatre in the West End, is coming up on its 38th year.
