Book, Music and Lyrics: David Cumming, Felix Hagan, Natasha Hodgson, Zoë Roberts
Director: Robert Hastie, Georgie Staight
They say that truth is often stranger than fiction, but it’s not every day you find yourself at a production about the true story of a corpse that helped win World War Two and it’s a musical… Operation Mincemeat tells the extraordinary tale of a real British intelligence operation in 1943 that sought to deceive Hitler using a stolen body and some falsified invasion plans. What could possibly go wrong?!
The unbelievably barmy idea, thought up by Britain’s finest at MI5, involved procuring a dead body which could be passed off as that of an Allied pilot who “crashes” off the coast of Spain, carrying fake invasion plans for the Italian Island of Sardinia in a bid to get Hitler to remove his forces from the real target (neighbouring island Sicily). It was a genuine high-stakes gamble that ultimately turned the tide of the Second World War. Not the usual subject matter you’d expect for a comedy musical, but this Olivier and Tony Award-winning production absolutely brings the house down!
It’s comedy, historical drama and spy caper rolled into one deliciously inventive production and infinitely more entertaining when set to a razor-sharp score with five performers engaging in a mad dash to portray more than 80 characters!
Fast, ferociously funny and at times unexpectedly moving, Operation Mincemeat was first conceived by the comedy quartet SplitLip in 2017. After years on the fringe circuit, they had the audacious idea for a musical so bonkers it could only be British! The show began life as a low-budget production at London’s New Diorama Theatre in 2019. Word of mouth and a small yet dedicated following propelled it through sold-out runs and into the Fortune Theatre in the West End in 2023, where it won the Olivier and WhatsOnstage Awards® for ‘Best New Musical’ and amassed an unprecedented haul of five-star reviews. Now launching its world tour from the Lowry in Manchester, this production truly feels like a triumphant homecoming as The Lowry was the venue that hosted the show’s ever scratch performance back in 2017 and has supported them in their endeavours ever since.
And the new ensemble’s (as the original SplitLip cast move on to new projects) precision and attention to detail is nothing short of astonishing. You’d be hard-pressed to find a slicker production anywhere. The staging is deceptively simple. A largely minimal set becomes an MI5 office, a submarine or a Spanish shoreline through ingenious physicality and slick choreography that brings to mind the likes of Hamilton. Director Robert Hastie and Resident Director Georgie Staite keep the pace fast, but there’s a sense of controlled chaos. The coordination between the cast is electric; their quick-fire exchanges never miss a beat, and the lightning-fast costume changes seem more of a genuine joy than a panic, generating an infectious sense of shared mischief when they are inevitably pulled off to perfection.
All the cast demonstrate superb versatility, clearly relishing the absurdity of their multiple roles and mining every comic beat for all its worth. But special mention must go to Christian Andrews for his role as Hester Leggatt, a senior secretary at MI5 who helped create a persona, “Bill Martin”, for their fake officer and was responsible for crafting believable love letters from his supposed fiancée to add authenticity to the scheme.
It is these letters that inspired the song Dear Bill, which certainly catches the unprepared audience member off-guard after a string of mainly comedy numbers (think rapping Nazis and Rocky Horroresque numbers) – providing a moment of heartfelt reflection on the cost of war, (particularly for those left behind) amid the chaos. The number is handled with disarming delicacy and feeling by Andrews, leaving hardly a dry eye in the house as he switches between clipped humour and gentle vulnerability with ease.
While the production is witty and often deliciously irreverent, it should be commended for never losing sight of the human cost underpinning the narrative. From Charles Cholmondeley who was actually the brains behind ‘Operation Mincemeat’ but who struggles to assert his place at MI5 surrounded by the Eton Elite, to Jean Leslie, a young and eager clerk struggling to prove her worth and get ahead in a man’s world, all the characters (perhaps unsurprisingly given they are all portrayals of genuine historical figures) are portrayed with real depth, particularly in moments where humour gives way to reflection on real world issues. The tribute to Glyndwr Michael, the homeless Welshman whose dead body was used in the ruse, is an important and moving addition.
The icing on the cake is the running gag about the works of a certain real-life author Ian Fleming, who, when it was discovered by the SplitLip team was actually an MI5 operative at the time, they felt they just had to include!
Bold, British and brilliantly bonkers, Operation Mincemeat is that rare theatrical phenomenon: a show that doesn’t miss a beat, will have you splitting your sides and wiping away tears all in the space of a few minutes and most importantly, utterly and completely entertains. It is, quite simply, a triumph arising from a triumph.
Runs until 28 February 2026 and on tour
