Theatre Review – The Mousetrap

I recently took a quick trip down to London to see Agatha Christie’s the Mousetrap. As a huge Agatha Christie fan this was a real bucket list item for me. And it was fantastic.

This year is the 70th year of the Mousetrap being preformed in the Westend. It began at the Ambassadors Theatre in 1952 and was re-housed in St Martin’s Theatre in 1974, without even a day’s break between them. St Martin’s Theatre is still home to the Mousetrap to this day and the lobby is decorated with the play’s history. We saw the 29013th performance. What was lovely is when you purchase a programme they stamp it with performance number. Which I thought was just a really nice touch.

The Theatre itself is just an gorgeous old theatre, it even has its old ashtrays on the walls. All of this really lends itself to the atmosphere of the play enveloping you in the 1950’s setting.

As for the play itself, the acting was amazing, the actors played it to such a perfect level. The cast were just so good, playing both the subtle notes and over the top moments just perfectly. The physical comedy they put into it was also just so well preformed, drawing you into the mystery. Each of them had such great little moments that made them a suspect but also had you protesting their innocence too. There was just enough camp added to bring such an old play to a modern audience while still keeping the authenticity of the play. It was so well staged. The pacing was brilliant, introducing all the characters, letting you get to know them and closing act one with a murder on the blacked out stage so you could spend the interval theorising about who did it. You could hear discussions all around you in the theatre of who each person thought did it, who was lying about who they are, who was innocent and each person making a different case. The whole audience seemed eager for Act 2 to start so we could finally have the answers.

I also loved the pacing ramp up at the end. It goes so quickly and the reveal came as a shock. Even with it running so long it still drew the whole audience in with audible gasp when we all finally learned who the killer is!

At the very end a speech is made that holds all the audience to a promise to not reveal the ending and I am keeping that promise. All I will say is at 70 years on the stage it is still exciting and entreating. Even knowing who the killer is I would happily see it again as I really enjoyed myself.

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Have you seen the Mousetrap? Still keeping the secret what was your favourite moment?

If you would like to read more of my thoughts on the work of Agatha Christie you can find my Agatha Christie Project page here. I will be doing a big update with all my 2022 reviews very soon!

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Happy Reading!