The Rat Trap

The Rat Trap (1918) is a four-act drama by Noël Coward, his 'first really serious attempt at psychological conflict', written when he was only 18.

In his 1937 memoirs, Present Indicative, he admits that as 'a whole it was immature, but it was much steadier than anything I had done hitherto...when I had finished it, I felt, for the first time with genuine conviction, that I could really write plays.'

It was first performed on 18 October 1926, for 12 performances at the Everyman Theatre, Hampstead, in London, presented by George Carr (who also directed), Raymond Massey (who also played a supporting role), and Allan Wade. The production starred Robert Harris as Keld (an aspiring young playwright) and Joyce Kennedy as Sheila (a novelist, Keld's fiancée in Act I, his wife in the three subsequent acts). Strong support was given by Adrienne Allen as Ruby (an ambitious musical comedy actress), Mary Robson as Olive (Sheila's flatmate) and Clare Greet as Burrage (the laconic cook-housekeeper).

Rat trap

A rat trap is a trap designed to catch rats.

Rats are suspicious of new objects (especially objects that they've seen but not touched) and traps with only one entrance. If they see other rats have been trapped they may avoid the trap. Traps which do not address these issues are likely to catch only young, inexperienced rats, not the older ones.

Spring traps for large rodents such as rats or squirrels are powerful enough to break the animal's neck or spine. They may break human fingers as well, whereas an ordinary spring-based mousetrap is very unlikely to break a human finger. Rat spring traps may not be sensitive enough to spring when a mouse takes the bait.

Types of traps

A rat cage trap is a metal cage box-shaped device that is designed primarily to catch rats without killing them. Food bait (not poisoned) is put in the cage trap. When an animal enters the cage and moves toward the bait, the mechanism triggers and closes a door over the entry point. The animal is caught alive and without injury. The animal can be transported and released elsewhere or subsequently killed.

Rat trap (disambiguation)

Rat trap may refer to:

Rat Trap

"Rat Trap" was a single by The Boomtown Rats, which reached No. 1 in the UK Singles Chart for two weeks in November 1978, the first single by a punk or new wave act to do so. It was written by Bob Geldof, and produced by Robert John "Mutt" Lange. It replaced "Summer Nights", a hit single for John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John from the soundtrack of Grease, at number one in the UK chart after "Summer Nights" seven week reign at the top.

Song

It is a rock ballad, telling the tale of a boy called Billy who feels the depressing town he lives in is a "Rat Trap".

When the band performed the song on Top of the Pops (which is also mentioned in the song) as the UK new number one, the band members began by tearing up pictures of Travolta and Newton-John to emphasise the fact that the pair - who had spent a total of 16 weeks out of the preceding 22 at the top of the charts - had been deposed. Geldof mimed the saxophone part on a candelabra, a jest he explained in his autobiography Is That It?: "The Musicians' Union had forbidden me to play saxophone on the video, as obviously I hadn't done so on the record. But I saw a candelabra on the piano at the shoot and I put a mouthpiece in the central candle holder and played it. The impact of video came home when during the next few British gigs kids pulled out candelabras from nowhere and began playing them during the sax solo in 'Rat Trap'".

The Rat

The Rat may refer to:

The Rat (novel)

The Rat (German: Die Rättin, literally The Ratess) is a 1986 novel by the West German writer Günter Grass.

Structure and content

The plot is composed of many narrative strands and oscillates between fairytale, travelogue and surreal novel. It also contains cinematic perspectives and some poems. Grass incorporates some narrative threads of his success novels The Tin Drum as well as the Butt; further passages on maritime disasters, the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff, anticipate aspects of his book Crabwalk.

Grass has conceived the novel as a counter-image to Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's picture of the education of the human race: Humanity (Grass used deliberately old-fashioned word "mankind") have indeed learned "the virtue to eat with spoons, diligently the subjunctive and practice tolerance", all enlightenment but not their tendency to get their violence under control.

In the dreams of the narrator, who seems to be in a spaceship orbiting the devastated earth, a speaking female rat compels the narrator to review the destruction of humanity, and follow their dominant position by rats. Rats build accordingly, in a world destroyed through deforestation, pollution, and nuclear warfare, a new civilization based on solidarity.

The Rat (Beavis and Butt-head)

"The Rat" is the ninth episode of Season 8 and 209th episode overall of the American animated television series Beavis and Butt-head. It aired on MTV on December 1, 2011, with "Spill".

Plot

Beavis and Butt-head wake up after napping on the couch and find a rat causing havoc in their house and eating their nachos. They go to the hardware store to get a mousetrap, and find it difficult to set it up, constantly trapping their own fingers in it. Eventually they set it with a corn chip as bait and return to the couch. Butt-head sends Beavis to check on the trap, but Beavis falls for the bait and traps himself again. Later, they hear a noise in the kitchen and find the rat trapped, but still alive. Butt-head sweeps the rat towards Beavis, who accidentally releases it from the trap. The rat is grateful and follows Beavis in admiration.

The pair go to work at Burger World, with the rat in tow. Beavis lets the rat work in the kitchen with him, and takes it out on the tray when a woman orders. She is shocked and calls the manager, who is angry with Beavis and Butt-head. As the rat went missing while they were being told off, they search around for it, and find that it has given birth to a litter of babies.