By Ira Levin
Theatre Royal Nottingham
19–23 August 2025

Ira Levin’s 1978 opus Deathtrap is said to be the longest-running thriller in history on Broadway. It clocked up almost 1,800 performances over four years, so it was a no-brainer to include it in the Theatre Royal’s Classic Thriller Season.

The programme for the production maintains the thriller is “the ultimate theatre-going experience” containing love, betrayal, revenge, blood, murder and intrigue”. Deathtrap has all those elements—and so many twists and turns that it’s virtually impossible to predict the ending.

If you have any reservations that the season’s producers Tabs Productions might not be able to do justice to Levin’s work, don’t worry. In 2016, the company staged Anthony Horowitz’s Mindgame, which was so well received it transferred to London’s Ambassadors Theatre. Deathtrap is just as good and features two of the actors who made Mindgame such a triumph.

Deathtrap is the story of Sidney Bruhl, a playwright whose last success was 18 years ago. When one of his students, Clifford Anderson, sends Bruhl a play to get feedback, Bruhl recognises it will be a huge hit.Bruhl invites Anderson to his house to give him suggestions to improve the play. No one knows Anderson is going there. He tells Bruhl he has taken with him the only two copies of the play. So, is Bruhl devious enough to murder Anderson and claim the play as his own?

Andrew Ryan, who produced a memorable performance as Andrew Styler—another writer—in Mindgame, gives a hugely satisfying depiction of Bruhl. Ryan inhabits the character: he is impressive both as the scheming chancer with potentially murderous intentions and as the man struggling with writer’s block. It’s so different from Ryan’s role as dashed good Squadron Leader Stiffy Allwright in the previous week’s comedy, Peter Gordon’s Death by Fatal Murder.

Alongside him, Pavan Maru shows another side to his talents as Anderson. He demonstrates panache as the budding playwright transforms from a subservient, wide-eyed novice into an unprincipled, calculating conspirator. It’s evident that Maru totally enjoys being on stage and is becoming one of the first names to look for on a cast list.

Sarah Wynne Kordas, who took the role of nurse Paisley in Mindgame, doesn’t have as many opportunities to impress in Deathtrap. But she displays an interfering exterior as Bruhl’s wife Myra that suggests she might not go along with Sidney’s transgressions.

After taking the role of Welsh clairvoyant Blodwyn Morgan in Death by Fatal Murder, Susan Earnshaw plays Dutch psychic Helga ten Dorp with equal success in Deathtrap. Earnshaw gives Helga an amiable disposition even though the character can be annoyingly meddlesome.

Jeremy Lloyd Thomas gives his customary solid performance as lawyer Porter Milgrim, bringing a sense of reality to what is a surreal set of occurrences.

Karen Henson, who was also at the helm of Mindgame, directs with a skill honed from knowing what Thriller Season audiences want. The humour in Levin’s script comes out along with the mystery and suspense.

Considering the incredibly short rehearsal time that a rep season allows, Deathtrap is excellent. It deserves to be as successful as Mindgame.

* This review originally appeared on the British Theatre Guide website