Monday 8 April 2013

The Mousetrap

On Saturday  we went off to the Liverpool Empire to see a matinee performance of The Mousetrap, the world's longest running play. I've wanted to see it for a long time and it didn't disappoint. By the way, whatever you do, don't look on Wikipedia to find out anything about it, there is a major spoiler on there. I won't divulge whodunnit, as with the play Ghost Stories, the audience are sworn to secrecy at the end of the performance so I'm keeping quiet. It's bloody brilliant though and if you get a chance you should definitely go and see it. Anyway, since I'm not going to give anything away I shall instead share the general theatre experience... I'd thought Ian and I might be some of the youngest people in there, we weren't far off that and most younger people were there accompanying what I assumed to be elderly relatives. Elderly relatives who, seemingly, all had coughs, throughout the entire performance people coughed, not so loud it ruined it but audibly enough that you could be aware of it, it drove me round the bend. Another thing that drove me round the bend was the man behind us, he talked non-stop before the play opened, despite his companion not really responding, not that she could have got a word in anyway, he barely stopped for a breath...

"When he was in Brushstrokes years ago he was a lot younger" - talking about the actor Karl Howman

"If you took a tumble you know very well you'd fall right down them" 

"I get vertigo on two steps"

Then he said something about the height of the cupboards in his kitchen (I can't get away from sodding kitchen cupboards, can I?) followed by "Mexican platter Tuesday, Indian stuff on Sunday" 

"When you think about it... the boxes, them two either side of the stage, if you sat in them, you wouldn't see a thing" 

"It's incredible, all the fancy work" - talking about the decorative ceiling

"I get the same nausea looking up as down" 

"I'm clinging on with my right hand trying to look at the ceiling" - you'd think perhaps if he felt that sick he might just not look up, surely?

Then, thankfully the play started, at which point the two people sitting on the end of our row decided to move somewhere else and the people sitting on the end of the man with vertigo's row decided to move to ours so then the rest of the people on their row moved along two seats. I honestly don't think the audience at a pantomime would be as annoying. They drank pre mixed cans in the interval, they'd brought plastic cups with them especially. At least he wasn't coughing, I suppose I ought to be grateful for that small mercy.

Incidentally, I accidentally look at this (don't look if you don't like mice) on Wikipedia when I was trying to find out if it was the longest running play in the UK or in the world. Mice are one thing I fear most, I did not need to see that page at all.

Not so much a review of a play, more a review of a man behind us, sorry about that...

No comments:

Post a Comment