Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap: Darlington Civic Theatre

ON a snowy night in the late 1940s, a country guest house owner receives a disturbing phone call from the local police: there is concern for the safety of those staying at the house, and one of their officers will be arriving shortly. The snow closes in and the roads are impassable; one stranded motorist requests a room for the night and the topic of conversation among the guests is a murder the day before in London, 30 miles away. Is there a connection, and how can the police protection get through the storm to ensure their safety?

Enter the intrepid Det Sgt Trotter (Middlesbrough-born Lewis Collier) on skis, to inform the party that there may indeed be a connection between the remote manor and the murder. He entreats them all to speak up if they are aware of any link to the murder victim, but each one has his or her secrets and when one of the guests is murdered they realise that the killer is with them in the house.

First performed in 1952, Agatha Christie’s most successful stage-play has clocked up more than 60 years on the London stage and, unlike Hollywood’s The Sixth Sense ("I see dead people") the ending has not become common knowledge and the audience can be heard in the interval, speculating on whodunnit.

Louise Jameson heads an excellent cast, although one or two use shouting rather than projection as a means to be heard.

It’s an entertaining play, for the most part superbly acted and ssshh… I won’t tell a soul how it ends.

* Runs until Saturday. Box Office: 01325-486555 or darlingtoncivic.co.uk

Sue Heath