Jason Allen 21/03/23
“No”, you can almost hear the show’s producer mutter through gritted teeth, “not the film starring Colin Firth”.
And whilst that particular piece of synchronicity happened to be unfortunate – same title, same plot, verrrry similar release dates – in every other respect, this musical’s the superior slice of entertainment.
After a run across several of London’s top fringe theatres, Operation Mincemeat the musical has finally gotten its due with a transfer to the West End, playing at the Fortune Theatre until February 2024.
A joyously silly, whip-smart production from writer-performers SpitLip, 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 – an effect that the Daily Mirror described as “part Mel Brooks, part SIX, part Hamilton with a side order of One Man, Two Guvnors.” 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 24th February 2024. You can find out more, and get tickets right here.
Operation Mincemeat | Fortune Theatre, Russell St, London WC2B 5HH
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Fortune Theatre, Russell Street, Covent Garden, WC2B 5HH View On Map
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