Agatha Christie, The Mousetrap

Amy Lee (The Open University)
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The Mousetrap

is Agatha Christie’s most successful play in that since its premier, at the Ambassador’s Theatre in London in 1952, it has never stopped running in London. It is the longest continuously running play of all time, and has become a tourist must-see when visiting London. It was originally written as a radio play, commissioned by the BBC to celebrate the 80th birthday of Queen Mary, who was a fan of Christie’s. Christie accepted the honour and wrote a 20-minute radio play called “Three Blind Mice”. After that, Christie turned the play into a short story, while at the same time working on a stage version of the same plot. Christie had great hopes for the stage play, and she even suppressed the publication of the short story in UK for fear of revealing the ending of the…

1604 words

Citation: Lee, Amy. "The Mousetrap". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 19 January 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=9737, accessed 19 March 2024.]

9737 The Mousetrap 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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