Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap comes to the Empire Theatre

Murder mystery fans can put their minds to work unravelling Agatha Christie’s critically acclaimed whodunit The Mousetrap when it takes the stage at the Empire Theatre.

Hannah Fredericksen, TImothy Walker, Alex Rathgeber in The Mousetrap.

As a billowing snowstorm bears down on Monkswell Manor, seven strangers are trapped knowing that one among them has murdered a woman.

A police detective arrives and sets about interrogating the guests but his efforts become all the more urgent when a second murder is uncovered.

This is the opening of Agatha Christie’s iconic play The Mousetrap, which is set to take the stage at the Empire Theatres on Tuesday.

The critically acclaimed performance is part way through a tour of regional Australia after wowing capital city crowds.

It features some of Australia’s most lauded actors.

Alexander Wolfe, Miranda Daughtry, Alex Rathgeber in The Mousetrap.

Hannah Fredericksen, of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, and Dream Lover fame joins the cast as Mollie Ralston, the young owner of Monkswell Manor, while Helpmann Award winner Alex Rathgeber, of Anything Goes and The Phantom of the Opera, plays her husband.

Wicked star Geraldine Turner plays the seriously unpleasant retired magistrate Mrs Boyle.

Fredericksen said she first watched the show during its last tour of Australia and did not solve the mystery herself.

“It’s amazing writing in that there’s a lot of red herrings, so you think you’ve worked it out, you’re sort of pulled in one direction and you’re like, ‘that person’s definitely guilty’ and then suddenly, you’re sort of pulled in another direction,” she said.

The cast of The Mousetrap.

“(Agatha Christie fans) are often the ones that are being very careful and they’re going, ‘oh, that’s a classic Agatha Christie move there, I wonder if it’s that person’.

“Even when my partner was running lines with me when I was getting ready to go into rehearsals, I wouldn’t let him read that final quarter of the show, because I didn’t want to ruin the surprise for him so that he would be shocked.”

The performance started life as a short radio play in 1947. Titled Three Blind Mice, it was written as a birthday present for Queen Mary and later worked up in the major stage production.

Christie stipulated that no film could be made until six months after the West End production closed. Seventy years on and the play is now the longest running West End production, meaning the only place fans can take in the story will be on stage.

There will be two evening performances at the Empire Theatres on July 23-24, with a 2pm matinee on July 24.

Originally published as Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap comes to the Empire Theatre