The Mousetrap – Gaiety Theatre – Review
7th May. – 18th May, 2024
Find out more about this touring production here.
Giles (Barnaby Jago) and Mollie Ralston (Hollie Sullivan) are a young, married couple. They live in Monkswell Manor and are about to start a new enterprise running it as a guesthouse. This is their opening night and despite the heavy snow, an unusual collection of people arrive at their door. These include a young architect called Christopher Wren (Shaun McCourt), Miss Casewell (Helen Percival) and Mr Paravicini (Steven Elliot). During the storm, they receive a phone call from the local police station to say a Detective is being sent to the Manor. When Sgt. Trotter. (Michael Ayiotis) arrives, he tells the inhabitants of the guest house news of a murder and his fear that it is linked to one of the current residents of the Manor!
We have all the classic ingredients of a whodunit in this story, a stately English manor, a collection of oddball characters with mysterious pasts and a Detective trying to figure out the connection between them and the killer. The piece slowly reveals the history of the residents with more than one red herring along the way.
The play was written by Agatha Christie and opened in London’s West End in 1952. It has been running ever since with a brief gap for the Pandemic in 2020. It is one of the most successful plays ever and has been seen by over 10 million people in London!
The production is set in post-war England and you can expect a stiff upper lip and many clipped accents. The full production is set in one room, with all the incidents taking place in the sitting room of the Manor. The set captures the grandeur of the location, with its dark wood panelling and impressive ornate windows.
The characters are from the upper crust of English society. The cast indulge their characters, with several going quite over the top in their performance. Shaun McCourt is enjoyable as the eccentric Christopher Wren, a young man who lacks knowledge of the social etiquette of the time. Steven Elliot plays the mysterious stranger Mr Paravicini, who comes from foreign climbs and turns up unannounced at the door of the Manor. Judith Rae has more than a shade of Maggie Smith about her performance as Mrs Boyle, a woman who never seems happy, picking holes in the newly opened guest house.
If you’re looking for sparkling originality or innovation, it’s not here! While it may have been a cutting-edge detective story when it first opened, it has now become part of the establishment, a work that more avant-garde stories are based on. What it does deliver is a series of interesting character studies from the actors and a mystery that the audience is encouraged to solve. If you’re interested in Whodunits, this is one of the formative tales of the genre.
Categories: Header, Theatre, Theatre Review
No More Workhorse 
I’m pleased to say the first and only time I ever saw The Mousetrap performed (it was at the Rosebud School of The Arts Theatre in the tiny town of Rosebud, Alberta, Canada in the Canadian Red Deer River Badlands a town kept alive due to the performing arts school started by an eccentric being located there), I correctly guessed who the murderer was.
I remember during the play’s intermission in the washroom as I was washing my hands, my dad asked me, “So, who do you think the murderer is?” to which I replied, “Well, you may think I’m crazy for saying this but I think it’s so-and-so.”
My dad looked at me as if I was crazy.
Other men in the washroom when they heard my remark looked at me as if I was crazy.
Of course after the play was over and I was standing in the lobby, those same men were now looking at me with a different sense of appraisal.