Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap is the OG Traitors - and it still has audiences guessing
Seventy-five years, countless theories, one secret! Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap is on tour and still has audiences guessing. So who did do it?
There’s something magic about watching a murder mystery whose secret has been kept for almost 75 years.
I find the fact that generations of audiences have collectively decided not to spoil it is almost as impressive as the record-breaking run itself.
The storyline? A shocking murder rattles London. Far from the chaos, in a remote guesthouse seven strangers seek refuge. But when a police detective battles through a deadly snowstorm with a warning no one expects, it becomes clear the threat is already within their walls.
Agatha Christie’s famous mystery piqued my curiosity from the very beginning. The first half is mostly about meeting the people arriving at Monkswell Manor and deciding what you make of them. I loved that everyone still had snow still clinging to them as they came in, seeking shelter form the snowstorm. Classic Agatha.
At the centre of it all are Giles and Mollie Ralston, played by Ben Gresswell and Emily Laing, who did a great job at capturing a couple increasingly out of their depth as suspicion crept into their guesthouse. However, my favourite moments came from the humour, particularly Detective Sergeant Trotter’s arrival on skis, played brilliantly by Alfie Richards.
By the time the murder happens, you already feel you know enough about the characters to begin making accusations.
The victim’s final words, “Oh, it’s you”, immediately tell us that it’s someone they recognise.
We spent the interval going through every character, filling each other in on little details the other had missed. The murder happens right in front of us. Though this itself caused a surprising amount of disagreement. One of us felt the silhouette had given too much away while the other quite liked having one more detail to obsess over.
I overhead another audience member comparing the whole thing to The Traitors. My first thought was that it felt slightly wrong to compare Agatha Christie to a BBC reality show but actually I could see it.
The premise is essentially characters studying each other, deciding who they could trust and becoming increasingly convinced they’ve got it figured out, even though they couldn’t be more wrong.
As for whether any of our interval theories were right, I’m saying nothing. You’ll have to do your own detective work.
Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap is at Sheffield’s Lyceum theatre until Saturday.