KEEPS ON TICKING

Next week in London “The Mousetrap” is to give its 20,000th performance. “Next year, assuming it continues its run, will be the play’s 50th year of continuous production. A long time ago, it ceased being an adaptation of one of Agatha Christie’s slighter works and became something else: a record-breaker, a curiosity, a fixture for tourists, an ambiguous example of infinite success. To a certain sort of theatre-goer or stage professional, the Mousetrap is heaven – a fragment from a lost dramatic age of polite dialogue and sets with floral sofas. To lots of other people – fans of new drama, most critics – the play is a glimpse of hell.” – The Guardian