In this excerpt, Wren-Lewis discusses Christie 's record-breaking play and offers some theories on the secret of its success.

Wren-Lewis is a critic for various publications and a lecturer in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Sydney, Australia.

The longest-running play in human history is now well into its forty-first year on the London stage. Agatha Christie's detective-thriller The Mousetrap, which celebrated the fortieth anniversary of its opening on November 25th last year, has now become almost a British National Monument. When I went to its opening night, to see the young Richard Attenborough playing the detective, we were still only just emerging from the shadows of World War Two. The possibility that forty years on I'd be in Australia wasn't in my mind then, but even more remote was any thought that the play could still be going near the end of the...