Sir Peter Saunders

Shrewd producer of 'The Mousetrap'

Peter Saunders, theatre manager and producer: born London 23 November 1911; member of the board, Society of West End Theatre (later the Society of London Theatre) 1954-2003, president 1961-62 and 1967-69, vice-president 1988-93, honorary vice-president 1999; Kt 1982; married 1959 Ann Stewart (died 1976), 1979 Katie Boyle; died London 6 February 2003.

Although he was one of the more prolific theatrical impresarios of his era, Peter Saunders inevitably became known for one production only, as he acknowledged wryly in the title of his 1972 autobiography, The Mousetrap Man.

Opening in 1952, in the age of austerity, with rationing still in force, Agatha Christie's thriller The Mousetrap in 1971 became the world's longest-running play and, although Saunders sold the rights to Stephen Waley-Cohen when he gave up active management and his Maiden Lane office in the Vaudeville Theatre (which he once owned), it runs on still at the St Martin's Theatre in London.

There are some who would argue that the play, set as it is in an isolated, snowbound country house, with detective dramas on the "wireless" and with funny foreigners such as Mr Paravicini among the guests, is actually a paradigm of post-war England, a tight little island forced to adapt to change (the house's gallant owners, Giles and Molly Railton, have been forced by economics to turn it into an hotel). Saunders would have had none of such fanciful metaphorical theories. When asked the secret of its continuing success, he said, "It's a guessing game, with suspense and comedy, and the whole family can enjoy it."

For him, Agatha Christie provided just what the West End needed, good solid entertainment (he presented many of Christie's plays). His early experience as journalist and as press-agent was an important factor in the play's development into a phenomenon; Saunders shrewdly capitalised on anything that might help publicise the show, including holding an annual party at the Savoy, always to lavish press coverage, to clock up every extra year of the run.

He had never aimed to be an innovative producer. After education at Oundle School, near Peterborough, he briefly worked in films as a cameraman before Fleet Street experience and Army service during the Second World War, when he ended up as a Captain. Troop shows encouraged his managerial leanings and he presented his first West End production, Fly Away, Peter (St James's), not a great success, in 1947.

It was the eye-opening experience of touring Christie's Black Coffee (1950) to remarkable box-office receipts that persuaded him to turn to more of her work. He enjoyed a moderate success with The Hollow (Fortune, 1951) before hitting pay-dirt when a young Richard Attenborough as Sgt Trotter and his wife Sheila Sim as Molly opened in The Mousetrap (originally at the Ambassador's, 1952, and moving next door to the St Martin's some 22 years later).

Saunders had another major Christie success with perhaps her best play, Witness for the Prosecution (Winter Garden, 1953), which he also co-produced on Broadway, with further money-makers from her pen following with Spider's Web (Savoy, 1954) and Verdict (Strand, 1958).

Thrillers and escapist light comedies were what Saunders enjoyed and understood best, while he also liked to use amenable stars, most frequently Margaret Lockwood, who played in such frivols as And Suddenly It's Spring (Duke of York's, 1959) as well as in Christie plays. A twist-packed courtroom drama almost as successful as Witness for the Prosecution was Hostile Witness (Haymarket, 1964) for which he imported the Hollywood actor Ray Milland to star.

Saunders also had a penchant for the light political comedies of William Douglas-Home, presenting The Manor of Northstead (Duchess, 1954), The Reluctant Peer (Duchess, 1964), with Sybil Thorndike, and The Jockey-Club Stakes (Vaudeville, 1970), with Wilfrid Hyde-White.

A rare excursion into more controversial work was his transfer from the Mermaid of Bill Naughton's episodic play of the Cockney philanderer Alfie (Duchess, 1963). But as theatrical tastes changed, Saunders stayed mostly resolutely entrenched in his own kind of theatre, concentrating on mild thrillers – Justice is a Woman (Vaudeville, 1966), comedies such as Ray Cooney and John Chapman's Move Over Mrs Markham (Vaudeville, 1971) or star-packed revivals including Arsenic and Old Lace (Vaudeville, 1966) with Sybil Thorndike, Athene Seyler and Richard Briers.

Saunders tried to climb onto the 1970s musical-anthology bandwagon with a "tribute" (no creator credited) to the impresario he most admired, C.B. Cochran, but Cockie (Vaudeville, 1975) was a misbegotten enterprise, with only the sublime Max Wall emerging with any glory.

A lucrative business deal – he loved telephone negotiations with landlords and agents – was Saunders's acquisition in 1971 of Volcano Productions, run by a producer with a similar philosophy and tastes, John Gale. This gave Saunders an entrée into several highly successful productions – including another epic runner No Sex Please, We're British (Strand, 1971) and Douglas-Home's Lloyd George Knew My Father (Savoy, 1972) with Sir Ralph Richardson and Dame Peggy Ashcroft – although the shows included also some authentic turkeys, the nadir perhaps being a piece of surpassing tat, billed as a farce, Birds of Paradise (Garrick, 1973) with Moira Lister involved in mix-ups with the "birds" in a tropical- island brothel.

Saunders for a very large part of his entrepreneurial career was active in the Society of West End Theatre (Swet – now the Society of London Theatre) including two stints as its president, and was much admired by fellow-producers for his handling of business affairs. He remained an unrepentant dinosaur in some ways – he always resisted any suggestion of offering tickets at anything less than full price for his productions – but for all his sometimes gruff and peppery manner he was greatly respected within the theatre industry and by many actors, while his staff – including Verity Hudson, his general manager – were fiercely loyal.

His second marriage, to Katie Boyle, gave him great happiness in his later years.

Alan Strachan