As of 13 October 2014 it has clocked up a record-breaking 25,000 performances, with the play still running at St Martin's Theatre. The director of the play for many years has been David Turner. It ran at this theatre until Saturday, 23 March 1974 when it immediately transferred to the St Martin's Theatre, next door, where it reopened on Monday, 25 March thus keeping its "initial run" status. Its pre-West End tour then took it to the New Theatre Oxford, the Manchester Opera House, the Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool, the Theatre Royal, Newcastle, the Grand Theatre Leeds and the Alexandra Theatre in Birmingham before it began its run in London on 25 November 1952 at the New Ambassadors Theatre. It was originally directed by Peter Cotes, elder brother of John and Roy Boulting, the film directors. Richard Attenborough and his wife Sheila Sims starred in the original productionĪs a stage play, The Mousetrap had its world premiere at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham on 6 October 1952. Tom Stoppard's play The Real Inspector Hound parodies many elements of The Mousetrap, including the surprise ending. The play's longevity has ensured its popularity with tourists from around the world, and in 1997, with producer Stephen Waley-Cohen, it helped spawn a theatrical education charity, Mousetrap Theatre Projects, which helps young people experience London's theatre. The play is actually The Murder of Gonzago, but Hamlet answers metaphorically, since "the play's the thing" in which he intends to "catch the conscience of the king." 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. In Shakespeare's play Hamlet, "The Mousetrap" is Hamlet's answer to Claudius's inquiry about the name of the play whose prologue and first scene the court has just observed (III, ii). Outside of the West End, only one version of the play can be performed annually and under the contract terms of the play, no film adaptation can be produced until the West End production has been closed for at least six months. When she wrote the play, Christie gave the rights to her grandson Mathew Pritchard as a birthday present. The short story has still not been published within the United Kingdom but it has appeared in the United States in the 1950 collection Three Blind Mice and Other Stories.
The play is based on a short story, itself based on the radio play, but Christie asked that the story not be published as long as it ran as a play in the West End of London. The play had its origins in 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.
The play began life as a short radio play broadcast on called Three Blind Mice in honour of Queen Mary, the consort of King George V.