The Mousetrap

Watching The Mousetrap is an experience dripping in nostalgia, both for 1950s England, when you could cut wires to disconnect a phone connection, when people listened to the wireless, and personal reflections on making the pilgrimage to see the play on the West End.

Afterwards I almost felt like I should be walking back from the theatre and onto the London Tube, as I did one night after seeing the Mousetrap in the mid 1980’s.

The Theatre Royal airconditioning was even turned up to give the feeling of an English winter chill.

What made this a special evening was the exceptional cast.

Anna O’Byrne and Alex Rathgeber were positively scrumptious as newlyweds Mollie and Giles Ralston, proprietors of an English guesthouse which is blanketed in snow.

Their guests are all a little on the odd side. 

The stand outs were Geraldine Turner, who nailed the cantankerous complainer Mrs Boyle, Laurence Boxhall was a fabulous flirt as Christopher Wren and Gerry Connolly hilarious as the Italian guest, Mr Paravicini.

Throwing a cat amongst the pigeons – or perhaps more aptly the mice – was the arrival of Tom Conroy as Detective Sergeant Trotter – doggedly searching for a killer.

The play has famously been running continuously (apart from a Covid interuption) for 70 years, but it would be hard to find a cast over the years with so many accomplished singers. 

Director Robyn Nevin put their abilities to good use in one of the nice surprises of the night.

The big question challenging Mousetrap first-timers is, of course, whodunnit .

As someone who knew the ending, I marvelled at the clues Agatha Christie dropped into the plot to challenge the audience’s sleuth-like abilities.

My date was sure she knew who the murderer was – until the riddle was solved.

The Mousetrap warms the cockles like a good old fashioned English stew.

David Spicer

Photographer: Brian Geach