This column departed from its standards of strictest accuracy a couple of weeks ago when I wrote of Agatha Christie’s play The Mousetrap going out on tour for the first time to mark its 60th year and of my own ambition to see it, which I never have before, as I celebrate that same — for me somewhat dismal — anniversary. My colleague Giles Woodforde, a considerable authority on theatrical matters, took me to task on the subject in a letter to the editor, which he has kindly permitted me to redirect for use here. He wrote: “A momentary lapse of blood to the head has, I’m sure, caused Christopher Gray to write of Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap: ‘It is going out on tour for the first time this autumn.’ In fact, the play toured before it started its record-shattering West End run. Opening in Manchester, The Mousetrap arrived at the New Theatre , Oxford, the next week — October 13-18, 1952.”

Armed with this information, I was prompted to wonder what the Oxford newspaper critics of the day had made of the play. Had anyone suggested, for instance, that here was an obvious flop in the making which would be lucky to survive a week in the West End?

More to the point, had any of them revealed what I still don’t know 60 years on — the identity of the murderer unmasked at the close of the play?

No, on both counts. But what the two critics had to say — in what were broadly enthusiastic notices — still has some interest to the modern reader.

Since these were the days, when bylines took the form of a writer’s initials rather than her or his full name, The Oxford Times’s review was credited to C.H.H. This was Cecil Hudson, a sub-editor very soon to take over as editor, a position he held for two decades.

He wrote: “The Mousetrap . . . is one of those exciting bits of nonsense in which one can pick plenty of holes on the way home but which keeps the audience all agog while in the theatre.

“One must accept a good deal, of course — the coincidence which brings so many people connected with an old crime and a new murder into one guest house, the deep snow which plays so nicely into the murderer’s (and the author’s) hands. Accept these and Miss Agatha Christie’s latest thriller will live amply up to its name. The identity of the murderer — though there is a clue for the discerning — is likely to baffle the majority. It may offend your idea of what is credible, but by the time you think it over you will have had your money’s worth.

‘Huddy’ praised the “excellence of the acting”. Famously, of course, the cast included a man later to become a huge name in cinema.

He wrote: “Richard Attenborough’s Det. Sgt. Trotter quietly and firmly dominates the stage, and Sheila Sim, as the woman whose guest house venture opens so inauspiciously, blends charm, bewilderment and fear.”

The performance by ‘Dicky’ also found favour in the Oxford Mail where G.R.H (full name unknown to me) wrote: “Mr Attenborough’s detective sergeant is of no recognised police type — neither police college nor bovine rustic — but peculiarly Mr Attenborough, which means, of course, that it is a completely unforced study.”

There was an amusing sting in his description of another character: “Alan McClelland’s airy-fairy young man is definitely recognisable in this university city.”

One wonders to what extent these enthusiastic reviews were reflected in box office takings. Giles Woodforde said in his letter: “To my eternal shame, I failed to ask the play’s original producer, the immensely charming Sir Peter Saunders, for a copy of the Oxford box office receipts when he showed them to me some years ago. But I do have the New Theatre’s bar takings for the week — £288.12s.0d. This compares well with £292.17s.0d the following week, for Sadler’s Wells Ballet.”

This is likely to mean, of course, that The Mousetrap’s audience was much bigger, if we take it for granted that balletomanes drink only champagne.

I must canvass the expert opinion of our David Bellan on the subject the next time I see him.