The Mousetrap

The Mousetrap is playing at St Martin's Theatre on Thursday 5 November, and it's a bit of a London institution. It's the world's longest-running play, which is a hell of a claim to hold onto. It first opened in the West End back in 1952 at the Ambassadors Theatre, before moving to St Martin's in 1974, where it's stayed ever since. More than 450 actors and actresses have walked the stage over the years, and the show is now booking into its 75th year.

Agatha Christie wrote it, and it didn't start as a stage play. It began as a BBC radio play commissioned as Three Blind Mice for Queen Mary's 80th birthday, and Christie adapted it for the stage from there. The story is set in a remote English country-house hotel during a snowstorm, where seven strangers are cut off from the rest of the world. Things take a turn when Detective Sergeant Trotter arrives to find a guest dead, and the rest is the kind of whodunnit Christie built her name on.

There's a couple of things that make this one a bit different from your usual night at the theatre. First, the audience is asked to keep the murderer's identity a secret, so you're part of the tradition of not spoiling the ending for the next person. Second, there's a long-standing rule that no movie adaptation can be made until six months after the play closes in the West End — a moment that has yet to arrive. Christie herself expected it to run for eight months at best, so the fact it's still going is a bit of a miracle in its own right.

Tickets start from £25.00, with adult seats ranging from £31.25 up to £218.75 depending on where you sit. It's running on Thursday 5 November at St Martin's Theatre in London.