Operation Mincemeat

“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

Dinner and a show? Here are the best restaurants in Covent Garden