From a small band of highly talented misfits & rebels comes a daring and ambitious plan that succeeds against all odds…
Sound familiar? That’s the story of Operation Mincemeat – both the play and the real-life military ruse.
You see, both make for a terrific underdog story. This is, after all, the debut musical by the tiny four-person team at theatre group SplitLip. And after a run across several of London’s top fringe theatres, they’ve managed to steadily climb the ladder all the way to the West End (at the Fortune Theatre), where the show is currently enjoying its eighth extension. Which might be something to do with the fact that it’s had literally 65 five star reviews, making it one of the best reviewed shows in the West End ever. And despite the fact that we don’t do stars, we’d happily add this review to the pile, too.
A joyously silly, whip-smart production Operation Mincemeat tells the ludicrous-but-true WWII story of the MI5 attempt to confuse the Germans by planting fake military information on a real corpse. Lightning-paced, the show punches well above its weight, with the cast of five each playing multiple roles. There’s slapstick, word-play, a sinister pathologist who’s a little too familiar with the corpses in his care, and – spectacularly, in a moment you didn’t know you needed – a Nazi boyband.
It’s funny, it’s frothy – and then, all of a sudden, it turns out to be deeply moving, too. Whilst ‘a man playing a middle-aged woman reciting a love letter’ might not sound compelling, one male agent’s transformation – without so much as a costume change – into dowdy MI5 secretary Hester remembering her correspondence with an old flame who went off to fight in the first Great War, is heart-stoppingly poignant and extraordinarily moving.
Your mission: secure tickets now before they become properly expensive, and acquiring them becomes a military operation in its own right…
NOTE: Operation Mincemeat runs at the Fortune Theatre until 22nd September 2024. You can find out more, and get tickets right here.
Operation Mincemeat | Fortune Theatre, Russell St, London WC2B 5HH
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