Review: The Mousetrap at the Floral Pavilion ****
Generations of theatre audiences have the doughty Queen Mary to thank for The Mousetrap – although one suspects she would never have imagined the life the classic whodunit would go on to have.
She was apparently a huge Agatha Christie fan, so for her 80th birthday in 1947, the BBC commissioned the Queen of Crime to create a special radio play for the dowager queen.
The result was a short story called Three Blind Mice – as in the sinister, insidious musical motif which lurks in the background of the action of what eventually turned into The Mousetrap.
Christie herself reckoned the play would run for a year tops when it opened in London in November 1952 following a pre-West End tour - one which took in Liverpool’s Royal Court with original cast members Dickie Attenborough as Det Sgt Trotter and his Liverpool-born wife Sheila Sim as guest house owner Mollie Railston.
Now the officially longest-running play in history is about to enter its 75th year, celebrated in a fresh anniversary tour which is at the Floral Pavilion this week.
Times may have changed since a seemingly disparate group of characters descended on a snowbound Monkswell Manor Guest House, but The Mousetrap remains preserved entirely in its (imagine a clipped RP voice) terribly, terribly authentic early-50s setting.
And in a way, as an audience member in 2026 that is how you have to approach it too - as a specific (and nostalgic) theatrical moment in time.
Part drawing room comedy, part murder mystery, Christie’s knitted plot revolves around a reported murder in London which it becomes slowly apparent is connected to the historic abuse of three young siblings and one’s subsequent death on a farm not far from the action.
Above: Jack Hardwick as Giles and Emily Laing as Mollie Railston in The Mousetrap. Top: Det Sgt Trotter (Alfie Richards) and the cast of the 75th anniversary tour. Photos by Matt Crockett.
Revenge appears to be the motive, but what has that to do with the quintet of guests at Monkswell Manor, a country guest house freshly opened by newlyweds Giles (Jack Hardwick) and Mollie (Emily Laing) Railston? Is one of them actually a killer? And if the victim is the first of the murderer’s hauntingly whistled ‘three blind mice’ to meet their end, who are the other two?
We’re summarily introduced at the door to elderly, cantankerous, fault-finding Mrs Boyle (Susan Penhaligon), feverishly neurotic young would-be architect Christopher Wren (Thomas Barrett), mild mannered Major Metcalf (Nicholas Bailey), and two mysterious characters – the aloof Miss Casewell (Clare Duffy) and an unexpected addition in the painted Mr Paravicini (James Peake), a gentleman with a (cod) continental accent who claims his car came a cropper in a snowdrift.
Into the midst of this odd collection of humanity arrives Det Sgt Trotter (Alfie Richards) who attempts to untangle the whole tangled affair – a task made more urgent when a second murder takes place slap bang in the middle of the Manor’s baronial hall.
Under Hannah Chissick’s direction the cast keeps the action (ahem) trotting along with a mixture of bright, brittle and breezy performances which occasionally err into the frenetic. They maintain a good sense of tension throughout but also find and burnish the unexpectedly comedic elements in Christie's script, even if these tend to raise a wry chuckle rather than a proper guffaw.
Above: Mrs Boyle (Susan Penhaligon) and Christopher Wren (Thomas Barrett). Photo by Matt Crockett.
Hardwick brings a nice vein of cynicism to the role of Giles, Laing's Mollie is sweetly sincere while Penhaligon has lots of (subversive) fun as the eternally disappointed Mrs Boyle. Richards meanwhile acts as a steadily reliable guide to the plot's various twists and turns.
As the publicity for the play says – every whisper hides a clue, every story masks a lie.
As you’d expect with any murder mystery, and especially a Christie one, there is bluff and double bluff and a few red herrings along the way.
But there are also a couple of Swiss cheese-like holes involving – and it’s difficult to explain without giving away too much plot – an obviously disparity in the ages of a few of the characters given the wider narrative timeframe they are supposed to inhabit.
Talking of giving away, the play’s biggest tradition comes at the curtain call when the cast implore the audience not to reveal whodunit. It’s simply amazing that over the years theatregoers have (mostly) done as requested.
Although interestingly, as the interval loo queue discussed who might be the culprit (yes gents, this is a thing that often happens in the ladies!) one woman revealed she had seen the show many years ago and now couldn’t actually remember who the murderer was.
So while more than 10 million people worldwide have now seen the play, it still retains its ability to keep at least some of them in suspense. Which, along with new audiences emerging all the time means it would be no surprise if The Mousetrap continues to run and run.