Mousetrap

T'was pitch dark and silent. Suddenly the screams of a woman filled the air. Silence. A broadcast on the wireless informs that Mrs. Maureen Lyon was murdered in London at 3:30 in the afternoon.

 

Curtains up. The scene is that of a living room in Monkswell Manor, a guest house. Mr. & Mrs. Ralston are expecting guests and are doing everything to ensure that things are up to the mark. The bell rings and in comes Christopher Wren, an eccentric, excitable young man – bordering slightly on insanity – who takes an instant liking to Mrs. Ralston but is disliked by Mr. Ralston. The next guest is Mrs. Boyle, an elderly woman who starts finding fault with everything from the time she enters the guest house. Major Metcalfe comes in next followed by Miss Casewell.

All the expected guests are in and settled and the wireless informs that there is a huge snowstorm. Monkswell Manor is totally cut off from the outside world due to the storm. And then the bell rings again. Who is this unexpected visitor at this time of the night? Could it be someone related to the terrible murder of Mrs. Lyon? There is a silence in the air and finally the Ralstons open the door to the unexpected visitor, Mr. Parvaccini, who claims that his car broke down nearby and needs a place to stay for the night.

The Ralstons get a call from the police that a sergeant is on the way to their house to enquire about something very important, despite warnings that their house is inaccessible due to the snow storm. Minutes later somebody taps on the window. The window is opened and one can hear the storm outside, winds blowing fast and hard; and outside the window is the sergeant who has come there on his skis. The sergeant comes in, gets everybody assembled and announces that there is a murderer amongst them. The same person who killed Mrs. Lyon. And that there will be 2 more murders. The Ralstons try to call up the police and realize that the phone lines have been cut.

And then a second murder takes place, Mrs. Boyle has been strangled. There is the tune of '3 blind mice' in the background. Everybody is under suspicion. The eccentric Wren to the Major to the foreigner Parvaccini. As the sergeant investigates further, Mrs. Ralston starts to suspect her husband also. Nobody knows Miss Casewell's past and she is not very forth coming with it.

Totally cut off from the entire world, everyone a probable murderer and one more murder on the cards.. Will the case be solved? Will there be another murder? What is the motive?

Superb twist ending and brilliant performances, Mousetrap is indeed a play not to be missed. Mousetrap has a quintessential Christie plot with everyone under suspicion. The only disappointing thing with the play was that it was not chilling enough, the haunting tune of '3 blind mice' should have been used more often to create an effect.

57 years and still enthralling audiences at the St. Martin's theatre, watching Mousetrap is must-do for every London visitor(or should I say every Christie fan).

A westend night

Of late I have been in some sort of a slump. After the Scotland trip I have not brought myself to go visit any new places and mind has been pre-occupied with sad thoughts of not being able to visit any other country in the Europe(my VISA being valid only till August, I will have to travel 3 months the end date). After 2 uneventful weeks, it is again time to start rolling. The weekend is planned for with a probable visit to Oxford and the next long weekend might just be to Wales.. While these plans are yet uncertain and subject to change, tonight is all planned and confirmed..

Tonight is when one of my dreams will come true. That may be going too far, but what I am gonna do tonight is something I have always wanted to do. I am gonna watch the 'Mousetrap' at St. Martin's theatre. 'Mousetrap' is the longest running play in the world with more than 24,000 performances. 'Mousetrap' is a murder mystery written by the greatest Agatha Christie, whose ardent fan I am. The play has been running continuously for the past 58 years and even today the shows are all booked (or so I think, the online booking shows very few available seats for the whole of next month also). The audience is apparently told not to reveal the identity of the killer to anyone outside the theatre. Not of much help I guess, because the paperbacks of the same play are printed as '3 blind mice' and can be found world over. I am, however, glad that I never read the book even though it was in the local 'Star Library' in Moodbidri. Destiny, I say.

After a lot of deliberation I finally booked the tickets yesterday, the deliberation because the cheapest ticket was 18 pounds and the Indian that I am I was converting it to rupees. I quickly ran through the sites to see if there is a dress-code to be followed at the theatre(though not visible outside or at workplace, the pompousness and the overtly formal dressing of the Brits is legendary) and thankfully there was none. I am still playing it safe and am wearing my blazer to work today. The only other thing to do now is to take a print-out of my ticket and stop dreaming.

9 more hours to go and then I will witness a murder at St. Martin's..

Books are man's best friend

Books have always kept me company. As a kid it was comics like Champak, Amar Chitra Katha, Asterix/Obelix and Tintin.Stories in Champak have always interested me, all the characters were animals and all of them knew to talk, dance, cook, study...Dogs were involved in cat-fights, mice would rule the world, monkeys and squirrels and all other animals in one big happy family and many many unimaginable things. Asterix and Obelix was another hot favorite, though I did not at that age understand that all names had some meaning. My first password for quite a long time was one of the characters from A & O. Cacofonix and Vitalstatistix and Getafix..Amazing creativity to come up with such names.

The first big book that I read, was some 'Famous Five' by Enid Blyton. It was and still is an amazing experience to read her books. The kids having picnics in their summer hols and the adventures they had and the sulky Georgina. The thing I clearly remember is the picnic baskets filled with food I had never heard of; Sausages and Ginger beer. Reading about the underground tunnels and the island light houses and gypsies was so exciting. After having devoured all Enid Blytons in the school library I was itching for more. Went to my cousins book shelf and picked a book called 'The Good Earth' by Pearl S Buck; a story set in war time china. Wonder how I still remember that, its been 11 years now since I read that book. Recently bought a copy of that book to read it again.
Moved to a new town, a new public library and plenty of books to read. Sidney Sheldons and Jeffrey Archers and Agatha Christies. These 3 authors kept me busy for 3 long years, all through my high school days. Christies books deserve a special mention, no other books have had the same effect on me. I would be totally transported to England with good old Marple books. Many a people have a dislike for Marple and consider Poirot as Christies best detective. While I think Poirots good, I sure do like Marple. A little bit of eavesdropping, a little bit of village gossip and a keen insight of the humand mind and voila the case is solved!!!Apart from her Marples and Poirots Christie has written some books under the pen name Mary Westmacott. Have read a book 'Absent in the spring', till date it remains one of my favorite books. Its about a woman who painfully re-examines her attitudes, relationships and actions and how it affected others life and what people have always felt about her. A delightful journey into a womans mind, more of an analysis of the protagonists mind. Would love to read more of Mary Westmacott's books. Am so much in love with Christie that now I am currently reading her auto-biography. Hardy boys and Nancy Drews were the books I read for the lack of any better books. Of all the Sheldons the book I loved was 'Tell me your dreams', that was the first time I read of multiple personality disorders. Sex in Sheldon novels deserve a special mention :-) . Of the Archers I liked 'The Prodigal Daughter', somehow I liked it better than 'Kane and Abel'. 'Acts of Faith' by Erich Segal and 'The client' by John Grisham are two other books I remember, the former being a hot favorite of mine.

Never really ventured into Romance and Classics category. The only out n out romance I read was 'The Ring' by Danielle Steele and I liked it, but never tried anymore. The closest thing to a classic that I read was 'Treasure Island' (if it can be called a classic), Yo Ho Ho and a bottle of rum.... The next genre I tried was comedy by the comic genius P.G.Wodehouse. How an author manages to keep the reader in splits, a whole 200 pages book not some short story. Jeeves and Wooster, the nincompoops and the tinkerty tonks - a comic genius indeed. 'Aunts aren't Gentlemen' is one of the most recent of his books that I read.
The next 4 years never really tried any new author as there was no decent public library in Mysore. The only noteworthy book is the 'Harry Potter'. Hats off to J.K. Rowling, imagination has no bounds. While a lot of Indians argue that the Panchatantra and Chandamamas are filled with stories like that, I would say nothing comes even close to the Potter series. The Segals and Sheldons and Archers and Christies continued for 4 more years.
At the age of 18 I tried reading a Salman Rushdie 'Midnights Children' and it was pure Greek and Latin, I would come across about 20 new words per page and could never understand the story. Now at the age of 22 I read his book 'Shalimar the clown' and I am sure glad that I never passed the first attempt because I dont like his style of writing. 'No Onions, No garlics' by Srividya Natarajan, the Indian P.G.Wodehouse - I would suggest this book to any P.G.Wodehouse fan. Somehow I did not like some of the biggest names like 'To Kill a mocking bird', 'The old man and his sea', '100 years of solitude', 'Life of Pi', 'God of small things' . I guess I expect more melodrama in the books or my mind is not mature enough to understand hidden meanings (if any) in the books. Finally a mention of the best book I read - 'The Kite Runner'. Have written a review on the book : http://www.mouthshut.com/review/Kite_Runner___The_-_Khaled_Hosseni-128388-1.html