A chunk of stale cheese...

THE MOUSETRAP Opera House, Manchester, to Saturday.

I think it’s safe to say this infamous Agatha Christie thriller has long since become a self-perpetuating myth.

With characters who might have come from a third-rate Wodehouse knock-off and a mystery that wouldn’t stretch the talents of Rosemary and Thyme, it has hit its 60th anniversary in the West End not on merit, but because it has simply kept going for 60 years. It’s a sort of old, tired drayhorse no one has the heart to put out to grass.

This isn’t in fact the first provincial tour, despite being billed as such: the snowed-in drawing room mystery played Manchester and a few other cities in 1952 before opening in London and deciding it quite liked it there.

The suggestion the show might not be attractive for a modern audience seems clear from the casting: the producers have stocked the stage with a job-lot of former EastEnders and other actors from well-known TV shows, presumably to attract those who don’t know it.

So Bruno Langley (Corrie’s Todd Grimshaw) is the man of the house; Gemma Walker (Enders’ Sasha Perkins) is his wife, Graham Seed (the Archers’ former Nigel Pargeter) is Metcalf, and so on. Karl Howman (The Bill, Holby and many more) does a turn as the slightly creepy Paravicini and Steven France (EastEnders’ Duncan) is the very strange Christopher Wren.

The one piece of “heritage” casting is that of Jan Waters, who has been playing Mrs Boyle in the West End on and off for a decade.

This famous face-filling wouldn’t be so bad if the show had been given a wash and brush up for this special tour. But the truth is anyone who has seen it in London wouldn’t be at all surprised by how it plays here.

The handsome set is a copy of the West End’s 1965 version, and director Ian Watt Smith, who has directed it in London for the past couple of years, has preserved the tired Fifties performing style in aspic.

The actors all have that clipped speech and “speak out and don’t bump over things” attitude — and they all seem to act as if they are on the verge of breaking into laughter and admitting it’s all a big theatrical joke. Which it pretty much is.