A 25-year-old ‘Mousetrap’

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 34027, 16 December 1975, Page 18

A 25-year-old ‘Mousetrap’

Agatha Christie's, play. “The Mousetrap,”! the world’s longest running play, has turned 23, and plans are already being made for its twenty-fifth birthday, Reuter reports. The play, which some visitors to London regard in the “must” category along with Buckingham Palace and the Tower of London, opened on November 25. 1952, when Winston Churchill was Prime Minister and prepara--1 tions were being made for the coronation of Queen i Elizabeth the next summer. To celebrate the birthday, land the 9556th performance, the play’s impresario, Mr Peter Saunders, threw his usual party at the Savoy Hotel, and also drew up a list of statistics to delight the theatre buff with a taste for trivia. Since its opening, 132 actors and actresses have appeared in the drama. Forty-three miles of shirts have been ironed in the wardrobe department. The curtain lias been raised and lowered 111,550 times, and various “Mr Paravincini’s” have smoked 9511 cigars. (A) 1969 Paravinci had laryngitis and was forbidden to 'smoke for six weeks). More important nearly I 3.75 million people have seen the London production, and by early next year it will have grossed £3m. Tickets, which cost 75p in 1952, now cost £2.75. In March last year the play was transferred from the 453-seat Ambassadors Theatre, where it opened, to St Martins, but by December 23. 1970, it had run up 7511 performances to set the world record for the greatest number of performances during a continuous run in a single theatre. It passed a play called “The Drunkard.” which ran ; from July 6, 1933, to Sep- . tember. 1953. at the Theatre . Mart in Los Angeles. ( Mr Saunders, who was 64 ; two days before the play turned 23, replied when r asked why the drama had .enjoyed such success: “I wish I knew. I would do it | t again.” . He said that during the ( first year the theatre was . booked to 88 per cent capacity. Last year it was booked ! to 89 per cent, a figure which had held through this i year. “After the first five years i i and a half it became one of j i the sights of London. It runs! almost by perpetual motion. t It hasn’t given me a single, . worry for 18 years,” Mr! Saunders said. i The audience varies, ; throughout the year, but Mr! [ Saunders reckons that in the; . summer 75 to 80 per cent of • the seats are taken by touri ists from abroad. Many . other viewers are Britons . from outside London, who may visit the capital once in ■’their lives. “The Mousetrap” !is the only play they have heard of.

Many Americans were affraid to return home and admit to friends that they had missed it. he said, recounting the tale of one .women from Ohio who had ; screaming hysterics when told the performance was Isold out. She was finallv. allowed to sit on the steps, Jas the theatre has no standi ing room. i The play itself is a gentle. | neatly devised, country ■ house detective yarn origii nally written by Miss ! Christie as a radio plav. for I Queen Mary’s eightieth birthday. It is a classic Christie: an old house, a bizarre cast of characters, a murder, an inspector who < just happens to be there,, and the least likely suspect I at last apprehended '■ Mr Saunders said no effort had been made to bring the language up to date, except to take out references to rationing, which was in force when the play opened. *

“The Mousetrap” has been physically updated, in that all costumes, furnishings, and curtains have had to be replaced, except for a leather armchair and a clock on the mantlepiece. The show is also successful, Mr Saunders feels, be-

iicause it is clean. “As long, t;and I am presenting it, it , j won’t go nude,” he said. ;! At least one problem has i; been caused by the play’s : long run. In 1956 Mr Saunders sold the film rights to - “The Mousetrap” to Ro- - mulus Films, with the pro-

,viso that the film could not; be released until six months' after the end of the London stage run. Mr Saunders has offered several times to buy the rights back, but he said Romulus films was happy to wait.