The Mousetrap
Country Life UK|November 30, 2022
A DECADE ago, an entry on The Mousetrap in the Methuen Drama Dictionary of the Theatre noted that audiences for the long-running West End phenomenon were said to have consumed more than 395 tons of ice cream and 80,000 gallons of drinks, as backstage staff ironed about 100 miles of shirts.
Agatha Christie
The Mousetrap

As the Christie murder mystery sails past its 70th anniversary (the West End run began at the Ambassadors Theatre on November 25, 1952, after a provincial tour starting at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham, the previous month), there is a danger of greeting the fact with a shrug of the shoulders. The Mousetrap has been a record- breaker for years, having entered The Guinness Book of Records in 1958 when its 2,239th performance made it the longest-running show of any kind in British theatre history and possibly the world.

A nostalgic recollection calls to mind the early 1980s, when the daily newspaper entertainment pages still carried West End theatre billings. The one for The Mousetrap (‘30th year’, and so on) suggested a reassuring permanency without necessarily making viewing a show seem essential.

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