Review: The Mousetrap is a good catch for Chesterfield’s Pomegranate

It’s the ultimate in country house murder mysteries. A small guest house, the owners naïve and trusting (or are they!), the four guests perfectly innocent (or are they!), and a fifth who turns up unexpectedly. Heavy snow cuts them off from civilisation, and there’s murder in the newspaper headlines and on the radio news.

Anne Kavanagh (Mrs Boyle), Ryan Saunders (Christopher Wren) and Christopher Gilling (Major Metcalf) in The Mousetrap

It has to be Agatha Christie. It has to be The Mousetrap.

The diamond anniversary tour has reached Chesterfield this week, and is filling the Pomegranate to capacity.

It’s edge-of-the-seat stuff, played just a little larger than life on an elegant panelled set with leaded windows, cretonne-covered sofa and a basket of logs on the hearth. The

dark humour which leavens the inevitable doom is mainly in the hands of Christopher Wren (played by Ryan Saunders), who bounces around like an over-enthusiastic puppy, and Paravincini (Michael Fenner), the mysterious and slightly sinister unexpected guest.

Less amiable is cantankerous Mrs Boyle (Anne Kavanagh), and sharp-tongued Miss Casewell (Ellie Jacob) is clearly unhappy about something.

Major Metcalf (Chris Gilling) seems fairly normal, as do mine host and hostess the Ralstons (Joanna Croll and Henry Luxemburg) – but you never know...

The plot thickens up nicely when a policeman (Jonathan Woolf) arrives on skis, and starts asking awkward questions.

And then there’s another murder.

Whodunit? I’m not saying. But see it if you can get a ticket, and you’ll never feel the same again about Three Blind Mice.

It runs until Saturday, March 1.

LYNNE PATRICK