The world's longest-running stage play, Agatha Christie's 'The Mousetrap', has returned to Manchester for its 75th anniversary tour, featuring a talented ensemble cast and a gripping whodunit plot.

Agatha Christie’s ‘The Mousetrap’, the world’s longest-running stage play, has returned to Manchester for its 75th anniversary tour, as fresh and tempting as ever.

The Manchester Opera House transports us to a wintry postwar Berkshire where a young couple, Mollie and Giles Ralston, fret on the arrival of a select number of guests to Monkswell Manor, their suitably archetypal archaic guesthouse.

Echoing through the corridors are the eerie strains of Three Blind Mice, foretelling the possible fates of Monkswell’s visitors.

Mollie, played with gusto by a vivacious Emily Laing, crackles with a genuine chemistry with her on-stage husband courtesy of Jack Hardwick.

But it is the eclectic collection of guests who add fire to the snowy climes of Monkswell. Burning the brightest is Thomas Barrett, who positively cackles and crackles as young Christopher Wren, while proving to be more puzzling than his architectural namesake.

A nervous bundle of energy, Wren is the first to excite, and to borrow a phrase from one of Christie’s most famous characters, the little grey cells of the audience, as murder strikes.

His fellow guests, neverthless, all arrive with that Christie air of suspicion - either of definite murderer or surefire victim.

James Peake plays a wonderfully camp, flamboyant Mr Paravicini, the only one of the arrivals, whose stay at Monkswell was not pre-booked. Conjuring up more than a passing resemblance to Peter Ustinov’s classic big screen portrayal of Poirot, Paravicini is perhaps the antithesis of the famous Belgian sleuth.

Indeed, Christie’s play, famously lacking either of her two most famous crime-solvers in Poirot and Miss Marple, is in need of a character to crack the case and that arrives in the form of police sergeant Trotter, played with just the right range from Alfie Richards.

Susan Penhaligon creates perhaps the most Christie-like character in the form of Mrs Boyle, an irascible, colonial-era old dear, who provides, at least for a time, some comic relief.

Nicholas Bailey and Clare Duffy, as the equally enigmatic Major Metcalf and Miss Casewell round out the superb ensemble cast.

The staging and costumes are, as you would expect from such a top-level production, period perfect. Director Hannah Chissick continues her critically acclaimed catalogue with this 75-year-old classic which still feels as fresh as ever.

Running at the Opera House until Saturday, October 31st, you should run like a mouse to catch it.