The Rat Trap

Prodigy that he was, Noël Coward actually wrote The Rat Trap when he was 18, although it wouldn’t be performed until precisely one century ago, when he’d reached the ripe age of 26. It is, naturally, a comedy, concerning promising novelist Sheila and Keld, an aspiring playwright. They’re a couple, but Sheila’s flatmate Olive warns her not to marry him, reasoning it’ll be the death of her writing career and that they’ll fight ‘like rats in a trap’. Sheil ignores Olive… and Olive turns out to be entirely right. It gets a rare staging for its centary, in a version that’s been ‘reimagined’ by Bill Rosenfield and produced by Troupe, who had a big hit at the Park with their take on The Forsyte Saga. Kirsty Patrick Ward directs