‘Everyone likes to be an amateur sleuth’
Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap is celebrating a staggering 70 years since its premiere. Todd Carty and Gwyneth Strong, who are starring in the show as it comes to Bath, chat to JEFFREY DAVIES about the murder mystery’s enduring appeal
AS news spreads of a murder in London, a group of seven strangers find themselves snowed in at a remote countryside guesthouse. When a police sergeant arrives, the guests discover – to their horror – that a killer is in their midst! One by one, the suspicious characters reveal their sordid pasts. Which one is the murderer? And who will be their next victim?
Celebrating 70 years to the week since its premiere, Dame Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap comes to the West Country next week starring former Eastenders favourites Todd ‘Mark Fowler’ Carty and John ‘Nick Cotton’ Altman, and Only Fools and Horses actress Gwyneth ‘Cassandra’ Strong, as well as Joelle Dyson, Laurence Pears, Elliot Clay, Essie Barrow and
Joseph Reed.
The genre-defining murder mystery from Agatha Christie, the world’s best-selling crime writer, is visiting over 70 venues across the country, including all cities to which it originally played 70 years ago.
The 70th anniversary tour marks the first of many ways that The Mousetrap will be celebrating its extraordinary milestone. Following its 1952 premiere touring production, The Mousetrap opened in the West End where still to this day it continues its record-breaking engagement at St Martin’s Theatre, having been performed there more than 28,500 times, selling 10 million tickets, and keeping audiences from every corner of the globe on the edge of their seats.
A true British classic, this beloved tale of intrigue and suspense is as enthralling today as it was when it first opened seven decades ago. An amazing feat, I remarked to Todd Carty ahead of the celebrated drama’s appearance in Bath next week.
“Yes, it is and I’m very privileged and very honoured to be part of this 70th anniversary tour,” the friendly and welcoming actor told me excitedly, before giving me his theory as to the murder mystery’s wide appeal and phenomenal success.
“The Mousetrap is such a great whodunnit. It gets you thinking about who might have committed the murder very quickly. And it keeps you guessing. And of course Agatha Christie is the most famous crime writer ever, her books loved by people worldwide. But
I also think everyone likes to be an amateur sleuth and a budding detective and they can be with this great and most famous murder mystery,” he said. The Mousetrap is heralded as ‘THE genredefining mystery’. What makes it worthy of such glowing praise, I ask.
“Well, it’s stood the test of time. Seventy years and still
going strong is not bad, is it! The story is such a good, riveting one with a great group of different and interesting characters. Agatha Christie was very clever with her characterisations and plots. The setting of the story in a remote guesthouse is perfect. The story is set in 1952 which is such a great period to dress up in costumes. All in all, there’s something about Dame Agatha Christie. She is the best crime writer that ever lived, I believe.
“I love Colombo but with that show you know who the murderer is from the start and so there’s nothing to work out. The Mousetrap is different because you see the mystery being solved before your eyes.”
Is Todd an Agatha Christie fan himself?
“Yes. I got into Agatha Christie by not necessarily reading the books. I was brought up in the Sixties and there were re-runs on the BBC of Margaret Rutherford’s wonderful Miss Marple stories. And I was only about seven or eight at the time. The stories stick with you. They are the fourth wall. Do you know what, Jeffrey, when people are asked to keep a secret about who was the murderer in The Mousetrap they generally do, which is amazing in this era of social media.”
Todd plays Major Metcalf, an affable gentleman who is very keen to help his hosts cope with the consequences of the snowstorm.
“He’s a retired army major. An old-fashioned army major of the old stock. He is larger than life and a bit blustery. He dresses rather well and I think secretly he might like the odd scotch! He is one of the misfits who decides to go to Monkswell Manor along with the other eccentrics and larger-than-life characters,” Todd said of the character he is only too delighted to be playing.
What for Todd are the necessary ingredients that a thriller like The Mousetrap needs?
“A mystery is the obvious word I’m going to say with a ‘something that goes bump in the night’ about it. Also characters all trying to get one over another. And, of course, a little bit of horror and a little bit of surprise which call on all our emotions.”
No chat with London-born Todd would be complete without asking him about two of the TV shows that made him a household name. Namely Grange Hill and Eastenders. Fun to do?
“I look back at Grange Hill with huge affection, Jeffrey. It completely changed my life. And literally overnight. I was recognised wherever I went and people called out to me in the street,” Todd, who played Tucker in the school-based children’s TV drama, recalled.
And what about soap opera Eastenders in which he played Mark Fowler?
“It was a wonderful time for me. A great show to be part of. Wendy [Richard] was like a second mum to me, and me like a son to her. She always watched my back and we both had the same kind of sense of humour.
“When you’re a teenage boy you have pin-ups in your room. Mine were Debbie Harry, Brigitte Bardot and Wendy Richard as Miss Brahms in Are You Being Served? She was one of my best friends for more than 30 years.”
Todd Carty began his career at the age of four, making his stage debut at the New London Theatre where he played the leading role of Lionel in the musical based on Lionel Bart’s life.
Playing the part of Mrs Boyle is Gwyneth Strong, who is probably best remembered for her role as Rodney Trotter’s love interest – and later wife – Cassandra in Only Fools and Horses, which has been voted Britain’s best-loved TV sitcom of all time.
The Mousetrap. Seventy years and still going strong, I commented.
“It’s incredible. Who would have ever known when they started that production. Nobody could have predicted it. It really is an amazing thing. I hear it every night and I think what is the magic in this? The reception we get from audiences at the end is phenomenal and I’ve never had that experience to this degree in any play I’ve been in. Really the proof is in the pudding,” a most delightful Gwyneth Strong told me.
“I think there’s something
about the coming together of a group of people [the audience] who also know they’re seeing something that has been going for so long. It represents something in their lives. Something special, I have to say.
“Mrs Boyle is great fun to play. She is the last person you want walking through your door in this day and age. If she came to your Airbnb she’d have you shut down very quickly,” Gwyneth laughed.
Is the actress a fan of Agatha Christie’s books?
“Yes, I am now, I have to say. I used to love them when they came along on television. But I’ve now become a bit obsessed with Agatha Christie herself, which seems to happen to quite a lot of people. I’m really interested in her life and what she achieved. She is a really complicated woman, which makes her even more interesting.
“In some of her female characters she really wrote ahead of her time because she did write about awkward, difficult women which was not really done then. I think hats off to her for that,” the friendly London-born actress said.
British people are captivated by the whodunnit genre, I remarked. Why?
“People like Agatha Christie became so very popular so the genre became part of our background and culture. They go to see The Mousetrap over and over. But of course in the West End the audiences are from all over the world so visitors get something from the murder mystery genre, as well as the British.
“The Mousetrap is a classic. Christie throws together these characters who perhaps have never spent time together. She cuts them off in terrible weather in a big, old hotel and the story unfolds from there. Having interesting characters is always good too, of course,” Gwyneth said with a smile before defining her understanding of the term ‘classic’ in this context.
“I suppose it’s the fact that people keep coming back and that it has managed to hold its own for 70 years as in the case of The Mousetrap. There must be something in the mix that makes it happen.”
Gwyneth began her acting career at the age of 10 playing Sally in Live Like Pigs at the Royal Court Theatre, London, and has since gone on to appear in many theatre productions.
As well as Only Fools and Horses, she has appeared in many TV dramas including Midsomer Murders, New Tricks and has even appeared in Todd’s old stomping ground, Albert Square, as recurring character Geraldine Clough.
Does she have happy memories of appearing as Cassandra in that most popular of sitcoms alongside David Jason and Nicholas Lyndhurst et al?
“Oh yes, it was wonderful. It was an amazing time in my life. It changed my whole career literally overnight. It was an incredibly happy experience. The ingredients of fantastic actors, fantastic writer [John Sullivan], a great director and a really wonderful team of people doesn’t happen that often and I have always been so grateful to have been part of it.
“It’s only when you look back that you think wow that was quite special,” she replied.
Initially called Three Blind Mice, The Mousetrap debuted as a 30-minute radio play on the late Queen Mary’s 80th birthday in 1947.
Agatha Christie later extended the play and renamed it The Mousetrap, a reference to the play-within-a-play performed in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
The Mousetrap is playing the Theatre Royal Bath from November 21 to 26. Tickets can be booked on 01225 448844 or online at www.theatreroyal. org.uk