Blind As a Mouse

I just fulfilled a life-long ambition. Well maybe not ambition, but certainly a box that needed ticking.
No, actually ambition isn't too far from the mark.

It is something that is hidden in the psyche of every theatre-going boy in England.
An experience to be done once in your life. To be treasured and secreted.
During maybe a visit to the capital and an evening in of the most well loved establishments in the world.

I've just seen The Mousetrap.
But I didn't do it in the way I had always expected.
I hurried after work having gobbled down the quickest of teas and bought a half-price standby ticket and went to see it in the Gallery.
The time had simply come to tick the box.

And it was the right way to do it.

With the play on its 60th anniversary tour there was no need to go to London. Indeed I had visited London on occasions for courses etc and considered a few times forking out the £45 they wanted from me, but never quite brought myself to do it. Well, there's a lot of choice! And frankly I was worried it might be a bit crap.

When I was I think 11, I visited London with my Dad, pretty much the only trip we went on together.
I don't know how hard "we" tried to get tickets for The Mousetrap but we ended up with Murder at the Vicarage. Which I actually think was a superior play. And I remember being pretty high up then. High up in the gallery is very little imposition for single set plays such as this.
I can still remember lines from Murder at The Vicarage, despite never seeing it since. Mrs Marple had a recurring line of "When I was watering the lawn that afternoon...." or some such, which introduced her busybodying. It is not amusing. It's just interesting how memory
sticks over 30 plus years.

I may not have taken this option of rushing off tonight had not a TV comedian ruined the surprise ending from The Mousetrap on a television programme about 15 years ago. Instantly I knew the experience of going to London to see it would be soured. I've never been able to forget it so I've always known the ending. Irritatingly now I can never know if I would have guessed it, so I've been truly cheated by Paul Merton. I think I would have. I think so. Maybe.

I even remember during my schooldays being entranced to see that The Mousetrap play was available in book form, but while flicking through bookstores I forbade myself from ever looking at the ending.

But today this was it. Enough's enough.This was M-Day.
It's in town (for the second time) touring on its 60th anniversary. So I thought...let's just get this done.
Let's bring this baby home.

So I should give you a brief review. Well, it's rubbish really. But there's something about Agatha Christie, and being brought up on France's Durbridge thrillers at the local theatre, that you always
hope for more, but it is only the performances and the smell of the greasepaint that can elevate these two act wonders.

Time perhaps has not been kind to the play. But it doesn't really deserve it. The thing is really that it's nothing special. Iconically special. But not a special piece of writing. It's a box to be ticked.
If you help yourself to an interval gin and tonic, my advice is to have a double.

Personally, I'm glad to free up that part of my brain to something else.
But I still like that it exists is a charming piece of parlour theatre. Quintessentially you-know-what.

The world is a poorer place without The Mousetrap. The second half does liven up a little. It throws in a few plot theories... but nothing as imaginative as the sort of ideas that fans on an Internet forum would speculate. The world has moved on. Nowadays if you're a comedian you have got to come up with jokes that Twitter doesn't think of first.

Ultimately I wish The Mousetrap well.
But, friend, if you don't happen to get round to it.... really.... there's no need to worry.