IN the real world, it was a warm summer evening, but on stage at the Pavilion, people dusted the snow off their overcoats and declared that the roads were impassable.

We were in Agatha Christie land, a beloved fantasy world where mismatched characters gather in the oak-panelled rooms of country houses to fret about murder.

The idea of taking this long-running West End hit on tour is a recent innovation and it’s easy to assume the touring version will be second best to the London one – but this production, with its handsome set and excellent cast, was definitely the real McCoy.

Christie’s tale is set in a remote guest house, whose address has been found in a notebook at the scene of a grisly murder in London. With the arrival into this snowbound home of a gruff police sergeant, the hosts and their disparate collection of guests are all suspects.

It’s easy to scoff at the tropes of Christie’s fiction, and you might have expected this tale to creak a bit. But the reason The Mousetrap has lasted is that it’s brilliantly constructed, and director Ian Watt-Smith’s production never put a foot wrong.

The performers – not least Luke Jenkins as Sgt Trotter, with Esther McAuley and Mark Homer as the young guest house owners – achieved every dramatic effect perfectly, as well as delivering the occasional well-timed laugh. And I, for one, was surprised at just how tense the climax turned out to be.

Not for nothing has The Mousetrap been running in London for 63 years. It is a great tale, and this production told it faultlessly.