At last! The Mousetrap!

I have been very late in coming to this party. The Mousetrap has been running for longer than I have been alive, I am a huge fan of Agatha Christie, and I lived in London in the 1980s, so no reason I could not have gone long before now, but somehow I just … didn’t. It didn’t seem urgent. I was always going to be there. It has taken the 75th anniversary tour and its arrival in Sheffield to prompt me to buy a ticket. There can be few nicer ways to spend a November afternoon than at the lovely Lyceum Theatre and it was a lot of fun. For a seasoned GA fan like myself, the identity of the murderer did not come as a huge surprise, but there was one little twist which I hadn’t anticipated, so that was nice.

I found myself thinking of a play that I did see in my London days, The Real Inspector Hound, by Tom Stoppard, a parody (among other things) of just this kind of country house murder mystery. And this production of the Mousetrap did also verge a little on parody, inevitably really, when all the elements are so familiar, and it prompted some some knowing laughter from the audience.

I did find myself wondering about one or two aspects of the plot on the bus on the way home, but no matter, I’d had a good time. This being Sheffield, I rarely go to a matinee on my own without getting into conversation with someone and this time it was a couple who had seen the play forty years ago, but couldn’t remember whodunnit, so they were able to enjoy it all over again. I don’t think I will be doing that, but I am very glad to have finally seen it.