The Mousetrap

Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap is over 60 years old

The Mousetrap at the Marina Theatre, Lowestoft

Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 24 June 2015 and the Lowestoft Journal, 26 June 2015

Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap is an institution – over 60 years old and still running in London. The celebratory national tour reached Lowestoft and thrilled another new audience.

A play of this vintage ought to creak like a relic, but a good who-dunnit is timeless.

Trap a collection of oddball characters in an old country house for days by heavy snow outside. Let actions from the past haunt people with secrets and we have a great mystery. A feeling that nobody can actually be trusted builds to the unexpected final twist.

Over the decades the production has periodically been refreshed and this one directed by Ian Watt-Smith makes real to a contemporary audience hooked on instant global communication the forgotten world of the 1950s where the cutting of a telephone line completes the isolation of murderer and victims.

It’s also the sense of watching a slice of professionally acted theatrical history that makes it a compelling evening.

The audience is still asked at the end to be a partner in crime and reveal nothing of the outcome. So, mum’s the word.