I went to see Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap last night at the Theatre Royal Sydney and it’s definitely a must see show. The Mousetrap is currently playing at the Theatre Royal, Sydney until 30 October.
The Mousetrap has all the hallmarks of a good mystery: A young couple have opened a guest house near London and await their first occupants. A heavy snowstorm has begun, it looks as if the roads will be blocked, and the radio is broadcasting news of a murder.
The guests begin arriving, and each seems odder and more mysterious than the other. A suspicious foreign gentleman becomes an unexpected guest when his automobile is stuck in a snowdrift, and a police detective skis through the storm to warn the assembled guests and their hosts that one or more of them is in danger.
While he is there, the telephone lines are cut, and someone steals the detective’s skis. By the time the expected murder occurs, Agatha Christie has set up a string of clues and red herrings that make all the characters appear to be murderers, liars or victims.
As to ‘whodunnit’ . . . you’ll have to see the play and work it out yourself.
The Mousetrap is written so well that even if you have seen it before or read the book and remember
how it ends, you will take pleasure in watching the way in which Christie develops the real and false clues.
The Mousetrap will be directed by Australian theatre icon Robyn Nevin and starring Anna O’Byrne as Mollie Ralston, Alex Rathgeber as Giles Ralston, Laurence Boxhall as Christopher Wren, Geraldine Turner as Mrs Boyle, Adam Murphy as Major Metcalf, Charlotte Friels as Miss Casewell, Gerry Connolly as Mr Paravicini, and Tom Conroy as Detective Sergeant Trotter, plus Jack Bannister, Elisa Colla and Chris Parker.
