The Mousetrap and Other Plays

Go Back for Murder

Presented by Peter Saunders at the Duchess Theatre, London, on the 23rd March, 1960, with the following cast of characters:

(in the order of their appearance)

JUSTIN FOGG

Robert Urquhart

TURNBALL

Peter Hutton

CARLA

Ann Firbank

JEFF ROGERS

Mark Eden

PHILIP BLAKE

Anthony Marlowe

MEREDITH BLAKE

Laurence Hardy

LADY MELKSHAM

Lisa Daniely

MISS WILLIAMS

Margot Boyd

ANGELA WARREN

Dorothy Bromiley

CAROLINE CRALE

Ann Firbank

AMYAS CRALE

Nigel Green

DIRECTED BY HUBERT GREGG

Décor by MICHAEL WEIGHT

SYNOPSIS OF SCENES

ACT I

London

SCENE 1 A lawyer’s office

SCENE 2 A City office

SCENE 3 A room in an hotel suite

SCENE 4 A bed-sitting-room

SCENE 5 A table in a restaurant

ACT II

Alderbury, a house in the West of England

Time—the present. Autumn

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Carla and her mother, Caroline Crale, are played by the same actress.

As regards the characters in Act II, PHILIP is not greatly changed, but his hair is not grey at the temples, and he is more slender, his manner is less pompous. MEREDITH is less vague, and more alert, his face is less red, and there is no grey in his hair. There is very little change in MISS WILLIAMS, except that she is also not so grey. ANGELA can have plaits, or long hair. ELSA must present the greatest change from LADY MELKSHAM, young, and eager, with her hair on her neck. CAROLINE is distinguishable from CARLA by a different hair style, as well as by an older make-up. Her voice, too, must be different, deeper in tone, and her manner more impulsive and intense.

Each scene of Act I represents a small portion of a room. In the original production the scenes were on trucks, but the whole of this Act can be quite simply staged by lighting up different parts of the stage in turn, or by cut-outs.