If you’re going in to Operation Mincemeat expecting a wacky comedy, you’ll get it. Maybe you’ve heard there’s a showstopping number, “Dear Bill,” that will move you to tears. As wacky comedies go, this one refuses to stay in one lane. Because as many laughs as Operation Mincemeat provides, it’s like its subject matter. You think they’re going to land you in Sardinia, but they’re really taking you to Sicily. Don’t worry. That analogy will make sense.
Written by David Cumming, Felix Hagan, Natasha Hodgson, and Zoë Roberts, Operation Mincemeat recounts the story behind a real MI5 operation in World War II. Performed by Cumming, Hodgson, Roberts, Claire-Marie Hall, and Jak Malone, the five take on multiple roles and manage to keep a smooth narrative for the audience. How they accomplish the quick changes will dazzle. Heck, they conquered several venues in the UK before opening on Broadway in February.
Despite opening with recognizable notes from the James Bond theme, Ian Fleming (Roberts) gets to be nothing but the butt of the joke. In fact, he’s kind of boring everyone else in MI5 with this terrible novel that he swears publishers are interested in. Roberts really anchors as the head of MI5, Johnny Bevan. She makes Bevan pompous, of course, but also reasonable. Thank heavens, or we might have lost the war.
It’s Hodgson as ultra-macho Ewen Montagu who skewers easily flustered masculinity. Historically, Montagu was the first to break these top secret events to the world with a book, The Man Who Never Was. The stage Montagu wants all the credit and more importantly all the perks. So he’s happy to take the nerdy Charles Cholmondeley (Cumming) under his wing and shadow. Chumley, as he’s called, has a plan that’s just so crazy it might just work. As the cast sings, dances, and occasionally hams up this story, the amazing thing is… it almost really happened this way. Without the songs. Maybe.
For the Allied military to get a foothold on Italy, they need to land in Sicily. Except the Nazis are there. If they can just convince the Nazis the Allies actually plan to land in Sardinia, they can succeed. Hence Operation: Mincemeat. They’ll dress up an anonymous corpse as non-existent military pilot Bill Martin, trick him up with paperwork and a valise with invasion plans, then let his body wash up in Spain. It’s a plot right out of James Bond, except the real point they’re working toward is that true heroes remain unknown.
The opening number tells us some men were born to follow, but the arrogant men of MI5 were born to lead. Never mind the women relegated to the secretarial pool. Proto-feminist Jean Lesli (Hall) manages to work her way into the room where it happens, proving invaluable. Until she challenges Monty one too many times. (Jean is the only main character who is a composite of several women who served.)
But the real hero in the plan is Hester Leggett, played by Tony nominee Malone. It’s Malone who gets that show stopping number, and once you’ve heard it, you understand why he’s nominated. Hester has to thread the needle between support and spying on Montagu, suspected of giving away secrets to his communist brother.
Despite being a story of World War II, the troupe fills it with modern twists. The forgettable Chumley hasn’t just worked at MI5 for five years; all the coffee mugs have his face on them. (Available at the souvenir stand in the lobby of the Golden Theatre.) Act II opens with Nazis doing a K-Pop number, so banging that Bevan has to scold the audience for loving it. Every day, that resonates more and more.
We’re still laughing, but lessons keep coming. Ultimately, the scolding turns into an uplifting reminder. As one tune in particular repeats throughout the second act, “if we’re down, we’re down together. If it’s up, it’s up as one.” And ultimately, the nameless corpse is the real hero. A homeless Welshman named Glyndwr Michael, we didn’t even learn his name until the 21st century.
Sure, the message may be moving and somber, but it doesn’t hit until you’ve left the theater. You’ll still be laughing and maybe singing all the way home. Operation Mincemeat has already provided several running gags in my home. It’s also a cast album that should get a lot of play, beyond “Dear Bill.”
Nerd Notes: Yes, Netflix currently has a more serious telling of this story streaming, also called Operation: Mincemeat starring Colin Firth. Montagu’s book The Man Who Never Was seemed to have been a staple of middle school reading lists in California, at least. And just as we got tickets to the show, I was pleased to discover that Cynthia Von Buhler’s graphic novel Minky Woodcock: The Girl Called Cthulhu, tells the story from a different angle involving not just Fleming but H.P. Lovecraft and Aleister Crowley. Getting a July 8 release, you can pre-order the hardback on Bookshop.org here.
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