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.
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