As my plus one and I tried desperately to spot each other in the massive queue for Operation Mincemeat snaking up George Street, a group of teen boys passing by craned their necks to see what all the fuss was about. “It can’t be that good,” one concluded as they walked off. Going in almost completely blind despite years of hype from theatrical friends, I wasn’t sure what to expect either. The premise, an all-singing, all-dancing account of WW2 Britain’s top spy brass luring German forces away from Spain with a corpse and some cunningly forged documents, is one that might raise an eyebrow as much as the grisly plan itself did back in the day. But having seen it? Yes, random lad on the street, it really is “that good”.
Mincemeat started its life in a little 80 seater in 2019, and despite its stratospheric rise to acclaim, with hundreds of five star reviews and a Tony award to its name, the set-up still remains true to those fringe beginnings - five actors playing a cast of dozens, location changes communicated with nothing but a rotation of a door-frame or the switching of hats. And yet, the whole thing is slick as Brylcreem, rapidfire costume changes, clever lighting flourishes and judiciously incorporated props telling so much with so little.
The show’s score often pays homage to other unlikely musical histories that went on to smash successes. There’s some Hamilton-DNA in John Bevan’s quickfire patter, a touch of Six in Jean Leslie’s girlboss anthem ‘All the Ladies’ (don’t think I didn’t notice that ‘Single Ladies’ choreography). And, while not quite in the same category, Europop-tinged banger ‘Das Ubermensch’ takes up the mantle from ‘Springtime for Hitler’ in the grand musical theatre tradition of songs about Nazis that slap but that you can’t hum on your morning commute.
But make no mistake, this is so much more than pastiche. For a start, can we talk about the capital L-Lyricism going on here? Any show that has the audacity to rhyme “hideous hero” with “ay, dios mio!” has my undying loyalty. Not a single track on this score is generic and not a note is wasted - all deepen our understanding of our plucky crew and/or drive the plot’s momentum like a dynamo. Fast-paced montage sequences are tastefully balanced with moments of quiet that take in the gravity and ethical murkiness of the task at hand. The crew of the submarine carrying the body of Glyndwr Michael (or ‘William Martin’) sing a solemn shanty for him as he is put out to sea, and Hester Leggatt’s ‘Dear Bill’ is, frankly, poetry. I do not normally tear up at musicals but Christian Andrews’ performance had me misty-eyed. It’s a number that captures the spirit of the show in microcosm. Like the letter from home she writes to plant on our expired ‘pilot’, you can’t just have the flights of fancy, you need the human element to make it real.
And it supports a script that is hands-down the funniest I’ve seen in a theatre. Not just ‘funny for musical theatre’ funny, we’re talking snort-sangria-out-your-nose hysterical. Operation Mincemeat has beautifully married modern and vintage British comedic sensibilities. You can taste the notes of Python and Blackadder in their needling of British intelligence’s posh boy saturation and absurd bureaucratic tangles (and again, in some of the choreography - hello, Basil Fawlty). But the show has a sense of humour that’s so wonderfully all its own, from its meta jokes that never outstay their welcome (“welcome to London! We’re Cockneys, and this is what Cockneys wear!”) to Hester’s brilliantly deadpan delivery and Charles Cholmondley’s love of newt-based analogies. It’s unabashedly strange and silly and at times audaciously dark; what other show has the guts to reference America granting safe haven to fleeing Nazis in its closing number?
You can’t spell Mincemeat without ‘team’, and by Jove what a team it is. It’s near impossible to single any one of them out for individual praise, so integral are each to making sure the machine runs smoothly. Séan Carey is endearingly neurotic as Charles; Holly Sumpton’s Ewan Montagu is the perfect blend of charm and ego; Charlotte Hanna-Williams plays Jean with a feisty ambition and some stunning vocal belts; Jamie-Rose Monk shifts between no-nonsense John and all-nonsense Haselden with the greatest of ease; and Christian Andrews as Hester is the team’s unassuming but quietly complex heart.
And ‘heart’ is really the word here. For a concept that could so easily have been a gratuitous shock-fest, Operation Mincemeat asks a lot of its audience - not least to accept that those who do great things aren’t necessarily great people. Montagu is a chauvinist and repeatedly refers to our body as ‘a tramp’ who ‘doesn’t matter’. But the show doesn’t share his view. Michael in fact gets a mention in the programme alongside the team that sent him off to sea, and after all the chaos, the show closes on a tribute to the sacrifice he never knew he made. Similarly, the living minds behind Mincemeat did not do what they did expecting to be remembered, much less in glitzy musical fashion. Still, in both cases, it’s awfully nice they are now. Maybe the show’s creators saw a little of themselves in the operation that inspired them - a ragtag team working with limited resources on a concept that seems too wild to work, before pulling it off against all odds. Mission accomplished.