Agatha Christie gave me The Mousetrap for my ninth birthday...
MARION McMULLEN DISCOVERS MURDER IS A FAMILY BUSINESS AS THE NOVELIST’S GRANDSON MATHEW PRICHARD TELLS HER ALL ABOUT HIS FAMOUS RELATIVE
Your grandmother’s famous murder mystery The Mousetrap is currently touring into 2020 and continues its record-breaking West End run. What does the whodunnit mean to you?
SHE gave me [the rights to] The Mousetrap for my ninth birthday. I do not remember much about the presentation (if there was one) and probably nobody realised until much later what a marvellous present it was.
It is, perhaps, worth remembering that my grandmother had been through many times in her life when money was not plentiful.
It was, therefore, incredibly generous of her to give away such a play, as in 1952, her books were only approaching the enormous success they have now become.
What are you fondest memories of the stage production?
WHEN I had the pleasure of taking my own children, aged 12 and 11, to The Mousetrap for the first time they enjoyed it tremendously, and crossed off in their programmes those whom they thought couldn’t have done it (the real culprit was excluded at an early stage!).
It was great evening for me, and would have been for my grandmother had she been there. It tells us something about the success of the play too. It contains so much for everybody – humour, drama, suspense and a jigsaw puzzle – suitable for all ages and tastes.
Regrettably, not too many plays on the London scene can say the same and I sometimes feel actors and actresses, anxious like everybody else for employment, must wish there were more plays with universal appeal like this.
When did you become aware your grandmother was a famous crime writer?
I SUPPOSE it took some time for it to sink in that I had a famous grandmother known to the world as Agatha Christie. I first remember her during the years when I was at preparatory school and her house at Wallingford was nearby.
We used to have enjoyable Sundays together and it was, I think, then that the first glimmers of truth came through. Very sensibly, the headmaster insisted on initialling all books that came into the school.
I came back from Wallingford clutching the latest Agatha Christie and wondering, quite genuinely, whether the Head could possibly find any reason for withholding the coveted signature. He never did.
There was, however, one occasion when my book took a terribly long time to re-appear. Later I realised that the headmaster’s wife had taken the opportunity to read it!
In such small ways, therefore, did I become aware that I had a talented grandmother. Not that it made a great deal of difference to me. She was just a marvellous grandmother and someone nice to have around.
What are your strongest memories of her?
THE first was her modesty. To the outside world I suppose this appeared as shyness, but to us she was always infinitely more interested in what we were thinking and doing than in herself.
She could manage to write a book almost without one noticing and sometimes she used to read the new one to us in the summer down in Devonshire.
She did so partly, I suspect, to test audience reaction, but partly to entertain us on the inevitable wet afternoons when, no doubt, I was rather difficult to amuse! We all tried to guess and my mother was the only one who was ever right.
I think most of my friends who met her during those years were quite astonished that such a mild, gentle grandmother could really be the authoress of all those stories of intrigue, murder and jealousy.
Did she enjoy the stage production of The Mousetrap?
I THINK she always had a love/ fright relationship with the theatre. Although I am sure she found the experience very wearing, she always enjoyed other people’s enthusiasm for her plays and found it infectious. I went to The Mousetrap several times with her in varying company
– family parties, girlfriends and with the Eton cricket team when I was captain in 1962.
We all enjoyed the play and my grandmother’s company in equal measure. But she was enthusiastic about other people’s plays as well, about archaeology, opera and perhaps above all about food!
She was an exciting person to be with because she always tried to look on the good side of things and people. She always found something to enthuse about.
What do you think is her legacy?
MY grandmother died in January, 1976. My family received hundreds of letters from all different walks of life and every part of the world and I have never seen such a uniform expression of devotion and admiration. No doubt that was because she was a kind, generous and devout person, and preferred always to believe the best of people. She never had an unkind word to say about anybody.
We were all left with many happy memories and, of course, all her books and plays, which I am sure will be enjoyed for many generations to come.
What are your lasting impressions of your grandmother?
IT is inevitable that they are rather personal ones. She was, above all, a family person and though everybody, from the literary world, from the world of archaeology and from the stage has good reason to be grateful to her, it is her family who have the most to be grateful for – her kindness, her charity, and for just being herself.
■ Go to mousetrapontour.com for tour details into 2020. The West End run continues at St Martin’s Theatre.