Wolverhampton Grand hosting soap stars in Mousetrap
As part of its 60th anniversary tour The Mousetrap is hitting the Grand.
One of the most famous plays of the 20th and 21st century, Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap, will feature at Wolverhampton's Grand Theatre from Monday 27th May to June 1.
The Mousetrap is famous around the world for being the longest running show of any kind in the history of British theatre – with almost 25,000 performances.
Grand spokeswoman Kate Evans said: "To celebrate 60 glorious years on stage, this masterpiece of British theatre will arrive in Wolverhampton as part of the show's sell-out Diamond anniversary UK Tour."
The scene will be set when a group of people gather in a country house cut off by the snow. They discover, to their horror, that there is a murderer in their midst.
Ms Evans said: "Who can it be? One by one the suspicious characters reveal their sordid pasts until at the last, nerve-shredding moment the identity and the motive are finally revealed."
The Grand's production will feature Karl Howman (Brush Strokes) as Mr Paravicini, Bruno Langley (Coronation Street) as Giles Ralston, Graham Seed (The Archers ) as Major Metcalf, Steven France (EastEnders) as Christopher Wren, Jemma Walker (EastEnders) as Mollie Ralston and Clare Wilkie (EastEnders ) as Miss Casewell.
The play has a brilliantly intricate plot where murder lurks around every corner and has won rave reviews with The Telegraph calling it 'The cleverest murder mystery of British theatre' and The Observer describing it as being 'Deservedly a classic among thrillers'. The Mousetrap opened in the West End of London in 1952 and has been running continuously since then. It has the longest initial run of any play in history, with its 25,000th performance taking place on November 18, 2012. The play actually began life as a short radio play and it was initially broadcast on May 30, 1947.
Its earliest incarnation was Three Blind Mice, in honour of Queen Mary, the consort of King George V. It was inspired by the real-life case of the death of a boy, Dennis O'Neill, who died while in the foster care of a Shropshire farmer and his wife in 1945.
Christie gave the rights to the play to her grandson Matthew Prichard as a birthday present. The play had to be renamed at the insistence of Emile Littler who had produced a play called Three Blind Mice in the West End before the Second World War.
The suggestion to call it The Mousetrap came from Christie's son-in-law, Anthony Hicks.
By Andy Richardson
