foreign so in this video we're going to talk about Agatha Christie's the mouse trap uh so first off I think it's it's worth noting the sort of external thing about this play the the the interesting and important thing about this play um this play has the longest production run in history uh it has the longest continuous production run I think the most Productions most performances of it in West End history in world history possibly within within a single uh run the mouse trap ran continually from 1952 until 2020 when it was briefly closed for um kovid and then it resumed in 2021 and it's picked up since then so uh The Mousetrap is a murder mystery play um set in a uh a guest house in sort of rural England um it is a guest house run by the ralstons Molly and Giles they are brand new to the guest house proprieting business uh and so this is literally their first set of guests they are concerned about things not going to plan um and then their eccentric guests start showing up uh Christopher Wren is the first one who shows up and he's a sort of avant-garde Bohemian I picture him as as basically Lord Byron in the night in the early 1950s um he's very interested in things like architecture Aesthetics um people's stories stuff like this uh Mrs Boyle and major Metcalf show up basically together uh Mrs Boyle is a somewhat older matronly woman who has very conservative ideas about how a guest house should properly be run um things like it should have a full staff um she complains a lot about things uh major Metcalf is a kind of stoic older ex-military guy retired military guy um I kind of picture him with large mutton chops you know it is what it is um Miss casewell shows up she's this kind of it's not 100 clear but I picture her as a again a very sort of Bohemian um almost new woman type figure even though this is the the 1950s in the era of the new woman was really like the 1880s through the Edwardian period um but I picture her as this sort of like showing up in a in a sharp suit with a nice trilby hat kind of kind of figure um so those are the guests who are expected Christopher Wren Mrs Boyle major Metcalf and Mrs Kate and miss casewell then Mr paravesini shows up he's a tough one for me to get get a good read on um let me see if I can find where we get the description of him um [Music] because I think it's a bit problematic I mean this was 1952 so you know that's how it goes um but he is presented as sort of okay yeah so it says he is foreign and dark and elderly with a rather flamboyant mustache is a slightly taller edition of Hercule Poirot which may uh give a wrong impression to the audience so the fact that it says he's foreign and dark is concerning and he speaks with a sort of French a sort of French code switching element like he he says some French words based on what we learned about him toward the end it does seem like he might be swiss but the fact that he's presented as dark is I think potentially problematic racially problematic I don't know I might be reading too much into that um but he shows up he's not an expected guest but his car has driven into a snow bank and he is hoping that there's a room available he can stay so those are the the occupants of this house when uh Molly Ralston gets a phone call from the police that they want to question her husband or they want to to pose some questions not question necessarily in the sense if he's a suspect um but there had been a murder in London of an older woman um and the description of the Killer is very vague he is a non-descript kind of dude in an Overcoat a light scarf and a hat soft felt hat which as I think it's Miss casewell points out could be pretty much anybody um so uh they get a phone call that the police are going to come to Quest to ask some questions um from uh from Giles they aren't really sure how the police are going to get there because it completely snowed in but then detective Sergeant Trotter arrives on schemes so that's convenient um basically he informs them that there has been a murder in London and they found a notebook with um with the address where that murder was committed and then the address of this guest house and there's a whole Three Blind Mice theme they think that this is connected to an earlier case um the Livingston Farm that doesn't doesn't seem quite right to me um Longridge Farm sorry yeah so there's the Long Ridge Farm case which it happened like 20 years early or something like that initially basically they had these three orphans who were put into the custody of this couple on a farm they abused and neglected these children um the youngest the youngest brother died um and then the the two people on the farm The Long Ridge Farm were taken into custody and they were sentenced to prison the woman who's murdered in London was the woman who had been that farmer that farmer's wife I guess whatever whatever it is um so she was murdered they suspect by the oldest son from that from that three the oldest brother from that three um who had basically um been who had deserted from his military service um had a history of insanity uh and so they they assumed the police assumed that he is the Killer and that he's come to this guest house to try and kill one or both of the other three blind mice figures the other the other people that he blames for the death of his brother and the abuse that he and his his surviving sister experienced the people in the house all deny having any connection to the Long Ridge Farm incident um but we learn that Mrs Boyle was actually connected very directly to the case um because major Metcalfe who was living in Edinburgh at the time um says I think you were actually one of the magistrates on the bench at the time in fact you were responsible for sending those three children to Long Ridge Farm Mrs Boyle says really major Metcalf I can hardly be held responsible we had reports from welfare workers the pharmacy people seemed very nice and weren't most anxious to have the children it seemed most satisfactory eggs and fresh milk and healthy Outdoors life major Metcalf says kicks blows starvations and starvation and a thoroughly vicious couple Mrs Boyle says but how was I to know they were very civilly spoken and then Molly says interestingly enough yes I was right it was you and then that just sort of drops for the moment um so Mrs Boyle we find out was the magistrate who had sent these children to the farm where they experienced this this horrific treatment um and at the end of act one she is murdered so basically what happens is um she's listening to the radio um a door behind her opens the tune of Three Blind mices heard whistle Mrs Boyle turns with a start and then with relief she says oh it's you I can't find any program worth listening to she moves to the radio and tunes it to the music program a hand shows through the open doorway and clicks the light switch the lights suddenly go out Mrs Boyle says here what are you doing why did you turn out the light the radio is at full volume and through it are heard gurgles and a scuffle Mrs Boyle's body falls Molly enters by the archway upstage right and stands perplexed Molly says why is it all dark what A noise she switches on the lights and at this at the switch up stage right and Crosses to the radio to turn it down then she says Mrs Boyle lying strangled in front of the sofa and screams as the curtain Falls quickly yeah so Mrs Boyle is the first one to be murdered detective Sergeant Trotter then is brief somewhat shifts because initially he is there to prevent someone from being murdered now he's here to solve this murder and prevent the third of the the three blind mice being murdered um everybody still refuses to acknowledge any connection to the long-rich farm case and finally we find out toward the end that Molly was the one who had a connection to the case because she had been the teacher of these children or at least the youngest child um and that youngest child had sent her a letter basically saying hey um shit's real bad here can you help us out but on that day she had gotten pneumonia so she didn't get that letter until after that youngest child had died um nonetheless the killer blames her for not having saved the the brother and so he attempts to kill Molly things do not work out that way I won't give you uh I won't give away the ending if you don't know it's not that big a mystery because again it's ran it's run pretty much continually from 1952 to the present um but long story short everybody basically uh everybody is not who they say they were Stan so standard Agatha Christie type stuff now the thing that I that I do find really interesting about this play is that there's a reasonable suspicion that everybody could be the Killer um so we start with this really right from near the beginning because Molly is listening to the radio announcement two announcements basically one is about this murder in London who is that the snow is going to block everything off um so Giles actually does there's this question of what do they know about their guests and Giles actually says um some of these people may be criminals hiding from the police [Music] but then Molly is listening to the radio again the voice on the radio says and according to Scotland Yard the crime took place at 24 Culver Street Paddington the murdered woman was in Mrs Maureen Lion in connection with the murder the police are anxious there's bits where Molly does actions through here and I'll talk through those in just a second the police are anxious to interview a man seen in the vicinity wearing a dark Overcoat light scarf and a soft felt hat now what's important about this bit is that as the voice on the radio says dark Overcoat Molly picks up Giles as overcooked light scarf picks up his scarf and a soft felt hat picks up his hat a sharp-eyed viewer might notice that Giles has all of the characteristics that they are looking for in this person um later Giles finds a bus ticket to London in Molly's glove uh she finds a London evening newspaper in his Overcoat pocket um there's a bit where See Molly and Trotter are sort of arguing about this because Christopher Wren seems to be the obvious suspect because he is the most erratic of them he's roughly the right age um and he actually did dessert from his military service so there's Reasonable Suspicion of him but Molly also points out that it could be the father of these children who hadn't actually died um he had just disappeared or something like that um major Metcalf could fit the description of the father and if he has come back to seek revenge he could be a suspect um Miss casewell could be the sister she could be back to seek revenge uh Mr parvassini they don't know anything about him he could be disguising his appearance to try and look like someone else so that's the I think the one of the most interesting elements of this play is is how much Christie does to suggest to us that the murderer could be anyone it's a really good technique for building suspense because even if you're doing kind of what I did as I read the play and saying all right I'm on the lookout for Clues I know one of these people is a murderer I'm gonna I'm gonna try and figure it out before Christy reveals it there's so many Clues so many Clues pointing in different directions that it's hard to really know for sure which Clues are reliable and which aren't foreign