The Mousetrap (play)

The Mousetrap
St Martin's Theatre, London in March 2010
Written by	Agatha Christie
Characters	Mollie Ralston Giles Ralston Christopher Wren Mrs Boyle Major Metcalf Miss Casewell Mr Paravicini Detective Sergeant Trotter
Date premiered	6 October 1952
Place premiered	Theatre Royal, Nottingham
Original language	English
Genre	Crime fiction
Setting	A guest house, Monkswell Manor, wintertime "in the present day"
Official site

The Mousetrap is a murder mystery play by Agatha Christie. The Mousetrap opened in London's West End in 1952, and has been running continuously since then. The longest running West End show, it has by far the longest initial run of any play in history, with its 25,000th performance taking place on 18 November 2012. The play is known for its twist ending, which the audience are traditionally asked not to reveal after leaving the theatre.

The play began life as a short radio play broadcast on 30 May 1947 called Three Blind Mice in honour of Queen Mary, the consort of King George V. It originated from the real-life case of Dennis O'Neill, who died after he and his brother Terence suffered extreme abuse while in the foster care of a Shropshire farmer and his wife in 1945.

The play is based on a short story, itself based on the radio play, but Christie asked that the story not be published as long as it ran as a play in the West End of London.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 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.

When she wrote the play, Christie gave the rights to her grandson Matthew Prichard as a birthday present. In the United Kingdom, only one production of the play in addition to the West End production 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.