Operation Mincemeat presents one of the most bizarre premises for a musical, and certainly a wholly odd choice of subject matter for a comedy. Blend the two together and add a British sensibility tackling one of the most decisive if lunatic decisions that changed the course of World War II and you have…a successful Broadway show?
No way.
Sure, it was a huge hit on the West End, after bowing at the 80-seat New Diorama Theatre in Camden and spending 6-years along the London theatrical fringes culminating with winning last year’s Olivier Award for Best Musical. But it could never work stateside, right?
Never.
And the ensemble consists of just five actors playing 87 different roles, most of the time, reverse gender. That couldn’t work in 2025, right?
Well, wrong.
All the madness comes together rather spectacularly in a show that proves that crazy-crackers outside-the-box creative ideas can beat the Nazis and can also make for a truly terrific and sometimes sublime theatrical experience.
‘Operation Mincemeat,’ the actual secret mission, was a ploy to trick Hitler into thinking that the Allies were going to land in Sardinia instead of actually invading Sicily in 1943. MI5 needed to come up with a plan to deceive the Axis so they would deploy their 100,000 troops (or most of them) to Sardinia, leaving the beaches of Sicily vulnerable to a takeover. It would prove to be one of the most decisive moments in the European campaign. And the way the Brits went about the deception is the stuff of legend. Suffice to say, it involved a poisoned vagabond corpse, falsified documents including a love letter from a nonexistent girlfriend and a briefcase with false invasion plans. The stuff of riotous musical comedy, yes?
Yes!
I’ve been intrigued by the actual Operation Mincemeat since I saw the excellent Netflix thriller starring Colin Firth and directed by John Madden in 2021. The story was also told onscreen in the 1956 Ronald Neame British film with Clifton Webb and Gloria Grahame. Now, we have another version of the story!
The team behind this insanity is the comedy troupe, SpitLip, comprised of David Cumming, Felix Hagan, Natasha Hodgson and Zoë Roberts. They wrote the book, music and lyrics. Robert Hastie directs with breakneck speed and precision.
The ensemble, all reprising their West End roles are David Cumming, Claire-Marie Hall, Natasha Hodgson, Olivier Award-winner Jak Malone and Zoë Roberts. All are uniformly splendid.
Malone has a song in Act One,” Dear Bill,” that literally stops the show, as Hester Leggat, an administrative assistant who never married and usually keeps a stiff upper lip. But the song reveals an entire life she’s kept hidden. It’s a stunning moment and may well score Malone a Tony.
The production manages a careful blend of wacky satire and patriotism, not an easy feat and is often reminiscent of Mel Brooks’s “The Producers.”
Sure, not all the songs are memorable, but plenty are. Also, much like with Hamilton, I felt Act 2 is stronger than Act 1–yes, I know that’s heresy and I’m probably in a minority.
The trick the show masterfully succeeds at is keeping things moving with uproarious moments while educating the audience on the real events, all the while revealing something deeper, the humanity at play, the fear for the those fighting—to save civilization. The show sets out to prove that the needs of the many do not necessarily outweigh the needs of the few—or the one. That every human being matters.
Another reason this show succeeds so well is that it gets the crapshoot risk Churchill and the MI5 team were taking and how such an outrageous plan may have saved the world. So, we get an outrageous musical that may not save the world, but it will take you away from the world’s troubles for a few hours. And remind you why we should still care about the world and all its inhabitants.
Not surprising, Operation Mincemeat has already extended three times and tickets are now on sale through February 15, 2026!
At the Golden Theatre, 252 W. 45th Street, NYC.
Tickets: https://operationbroadway.com/
