The Mousetrap – a triumph of whodunnit legend over drama (Grand Opera House until Saturday 2 March)

Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap is like a historic rodent that has been trapped in amber. It’s an artefact that people come from far and wide to study. A blast from the past that has escaped the confines of the West End and is travelling around the UK and Ireland on its 70th anniversary tour. But being old and successful doesn’t automatically make something good. The play’s attraction is clearly its longevity.

Back on the 27 November 1952, the Guardian’s critic – back then, the Manchester Guardian – wrote a scathing review that dissected the play like a pathologist looking for answers at a post mortem. “… as the snow piles up around the isolated guesthouse in The Mousetrap at the Ambassadors Theatre, the false clues drift across the stage, deluding the less alert in the audience and appearing to deceive characters in the play who ought to know better. Agatha Christie's comedy-thriller, like a more expensive production which Miss Tallulah Bankhead once commented on, has ‘less in it than meets the eye’. Coincidence is stretched unreasonably to assemble in one place a group of characters, each of whom may reasonably be suspected of murder in series … Yet the whole thing whizzes along as though driven by some real dramatic force, as though the characters were not built entirely of cliches and situations not all familiar.”

It’s hard to disagree with the unnamed reviewer. As new proprietors of Monkswell Manor Guest House, Mollie and Giles Ralston (Neerja Naik and Barnaby Jago) are still getting to grips with the heating system and how best to handle their guests. Christopher Wren (Shaun McCourt) leaps around the stage and throws himself on the sofa like Frank Spencer after three cans of Red Bull. If Wren was any more cliched, his costume would include a badge spelling it out. Mrs Boyle (Gwyneth Strong) is an irascible killjoy who could turn a bottle of milk sour even if it was sitting outside in a snow drift.

Major Metcalf (played by Todd Carty who escaped Eastenders 21 years ago when Mark Fowler rode off on his motorbike) leaves no door handle unturned as he explores the country house like a military man on a mission. Mousy Miss Casewell (Amy Spinks) has booked in for a spot of mysterious letter writing. Mr Paravicini (Steven Elliott) and his strong Italian accent drops in unexpectedly hoping to find a bed for the night when his Rolls Royce hits a snowdrift. And before too long, the oppressively shouty Detective Sergeant Trotter (Michael Ayiotis) is shaking the snow off his skis as he arrives to investigate a murder with his notebook, pencil and an ability to join dots that no one else would think to connect.

With one cast member found dead at the end of the first act, after the interval everyone’s alibi is undermined, and the woodworm-infected backstories are supposed to cast doubt in every direction … bar the one you’ll already be looking. Flukes and coincidences mount up like the drifting snow outside the guest house. Directors Ian Talbot and Denise Silvey allow the play’s tone to skid between the verges as banter and giggles totally ignore the dead body now lying out of sight. The cast wholeheartedly inhabit the ill-assorted characters who create the so-called melodrama. But the gruel is thin and lacks substance … and is much less witty than the recent film See How They Run which was based in the world of the long-running London production of the play.

In my days of working in London, I walked past St Martin’s Theatre countless times on the way to dinner with a colleague in the nearby Café Rouge. It’s good to have finally seen the play, even if it proved to be an anticlimax. This time two years ago, another troubled whodunnit graced the stage of the Grand Opera House. Catch Me If You was a star vehicle for Patrick Duffy (better known for playing Bobby Ewing on TV), but like 2:22 A Ghost Story, pulling off surprises in a theatre can be challenging. It all adds to the bulging evidence file that proves beyond reasonable doubt that constructing an entertaining one room mystery for the stage is a stretch even for an expert in the field like Agatha Christie.

The Mousetrap continues its run in the Grand Opera until Saturday 2 March. 

Photo credit: Matt Crockett

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