Operation Mincemeat is a brand new British musical about how a stolen corpse wrong-footed Hitler and helped win the war. No really. And it's utterly brilliant!
The mad geniuses behind this gloriously rambunctious and 100% true new musical are company SpitLip. Made up of 2/3rds of the members of fringe favourites and award-winning Kill the Beast David Cumming, Natasha Hodgson and Zoe Roberts and glam-punk composer and Kill the Beast collaborator Felix Hagan, this team of comedy masterminds bring to life the incredible true story of 'Operation Mincemeat'.
It's 1943, Britain is losing the war and 'the finest minds in England' are hard at work coming up with strategies to thwart Hitler. Cue the bonkers but brilliant idea to pass off a corpse as a British Naval officer, dump him in the Sicilian ocean with fake 'secret documents' in a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist, wait for the corpse to wash ashore for the documents to be taken to Hitler, to fool him into believing Britain are about to invade Greece to be able to, successfully, invade Sicily instead.
This show clocks in at 2 1/2 hours and is jam packed with fantastic, quirky characters, firecracker jokes and tune after tune. The Submariner's sea shanty, the 'Hitler on a train' patter song, 'Finest Minds in England' march and glorious 'Let Me Die In Velvet' were some of my favourites. The show is packed with songs so much so that I had sadly forgotten some of the other numbers by the time I had walked to the bus stop. Most notably the brilliant MI5 Spice-Girl worthy Girl-Power number about the female staff protesting that they will not be making the tea (which I will definitely be blasting 24/7 when the inevitable cast recording happens!) There are some repetitious solo ballads that could perhaps do with an edit or retiring to the B-Side, but the ballad which really must stay in it's entirety is the 'Dear Bill' number sung by Jak Malone! I could write paragraphs on this number alone! It's a brilliant example of classic and masterful musical theatre writing, very Sondheim, and it's in the more-than-capable and simply sublime hands of Malone who brings the house down in what I am dubbing 'Hester's Turn'. Such a sensitive and intelligent, heart-breaking and truly sensational performance that will stay with me for a long time! Brava!
This Jew(ish) writer wondered (and worried) how Hitler and the Nazis would be portrayed and/or covered, if at all, and so when learning via social media there was a whole Nazi Chorus number, I admit, I got nervous. The number in question opens Act 2 and is what I imagine Nazi Germany would have entered Eurovision with. It's an absolute club bop, with synths, drum pads, hip-hop choreo and not a single salute or goose-step in-sight (thank you!) but instead the quite brilliant lyrics 'step to the left, jump to the far-right' and is now my new guilty pleasure. Satire at it's finest!
The stage design (the work of Helen Coyston, who has quite rightly already earned an Off-West End award nomination) really utilised the small, black box theatre of New Diorama. Red, white and blue vintage telephones both hung down from the ceiling and jutted up from the floor setting us firmly in the atmosphere of a busy military control room, whilst a red sloping RAF jet wing shape at the back of the stage broke up the matte black and added some welcome asymmetry and levels and wheeled filing cabinets moved around the space to signify the multiple locations so simply, yet so effectively. The lighting design (Sherry Coenen's work) dances a perfect tango with the set, helping take us from London, to the Ritz, to a morgue, to a submarine, to Sicily, to home again.
A real spitfire of a show from a team who are truly masters at the top of their game and one's to watch! They're bringing victory to the original British musical scene in a unique and addictive way. The last few weeks of their month-long New Diorama run is, quite rightly so, sold out and the show is already up for 4 Off-West End awards. It's perfectly brilliant at it's current state but if the team decide to edit down to a fringe-festival 60min or even 90min, it will be just as ingenious and will continue it's sell-out habit as it, inevitably, converts even more followers to the church of SpitLip. I am very excited to see this show continue to develop and get the further staging and successes it deserves and whatever brilliantly bonkers subject matter will be the next SpitLip show!
Star rating: *****
Cost of ticket: £10 with promo code (£18 base price with some brilliantly generous concessions rates)
Venue: New Diorama Theatre, Regent's Place
Accessibility: Entry level access and theatre, cafe and accessible toilets are all on the Ground Floor. Hearing dogs and guide dogs welcome. Relaxed performances. Captioned performances. Some audio described performances (advertised on their website where available). No hearing loop currently but New Diorama website informs 'will let you know as soon as we are able to offer this facility'.
Comfortability: Raked seating with no armrests and is instead couch-like along the row.