“Johnny, picture the scene: What if a British pilot crashed his plane, and washed ashore in the south of Spain, his body forgetten, rotting in the sand?”
Funnily enough, Operation Mincemeat, based on a true-story, has a song titled “The Pitch” (quoted above) where the two lead characters pitch their stranger-than-fiction World War II subterfuge plan to trick Nazi Germany into moving their troops away from Sicily leaving the Italian island free to invade and capture.
The plan? Find a recently deceased person and plant him in neutral Spain with fake war plans on an invasion of Sardinia attached ready for German spies to find and bring back to Berlin, alerting Hitler to move his 100,000 troops on Sicily to Sardinia. The musical’s first act is the formation of the team at MI5, the British Intellegence organization, and the creation of the plan. The second act is what happens to our dead friend, given the fake name Major Bill Martin, once he arrives in Spain.
The comedy features a cast of five, each wearing multiple hats (literally) as they play a variety of roles including Ian Fleming (member of MI5 before he went on to write James Bond), Ewen Montagu, Charles Cholmondeley, Jean Leslie, and Hester Leggatt.
Image description: The five person cast of Operation Mincemeat wrapped up in phone cords. before the final number of the show. Photo credit to Operation Mincemeat on Broadway. Photo by Julieta Cervantes.
2. The History
Operation Mincemeat opened off-West End in London in 2019 at the New Diorama Theatre before transferring to the Southwark Playhouse (get use to hearing that name), Riverside Studios and finally to the West End in 2023 where it won the Olivier Award for Best Musical. Finally, it made its way to Broadway in 2025 with the London cast reprising their roles. It was written by a group of four friends (David Cumming, Felix Hagan, Natasha Hodgson, Zoë Roberts) collectively called SpitLip, three of whom (Cumming, Hodgson, Roberts) went on to star in the show at every stop. Mincemeat likes to tout that it is the best reviewed West End musical of all time due to its 74 five stars reviews. Well, go ahead and give it one more from me.
I had heard of the show through the grapevine, but didn’t give it a listen until a PhD student at LSU recommended it while we were working at Swine Palace’s production of People, Places and Things by Duncan Macmillan. The song he mentioned was Act 2 opener, “Das Übermensch”, where the cast comes out in bedazzled Nazi officer garb and sings a facetious EDM type song about how great they are (a number that works much better in person than just listening to, I promise). Not completely sold on that song, I put it away for a few months. After it opened on Broadway, I decided to give the whole album a shot, and I got it. Not only did I get it, I couldn’t stop listening to it. It is extremely British humor, so if you like Monty Python this is the type of show for you. On my recent sojourn to London, it was a show I quickly bought tickets for and it did not disappoint.
3. Favorite Fun Fact about the show
This story has so many fun facts. From the aforementioned Ian Fleming, being involved, other shocking participants in the actual Operation Mincemeat include:
St. John “Jock” Horsfall, a racecar driving champion, who transported the body from London to a submarine in Scotland
Sir Bernard Spilsbury, the father of modern forensics who provided the body. Later revealed he maybe wasn’t as good at forensics as he led on.
Ivor Montagu, brother of project lead Ewen Montagu and a communist spy and filmmaker who popularized ping-pong in the UK.
Image Description: Operation Mincemeat’s marquee at London’s Fortune Theatre. Photo by Drew Alvarez.
4. Favorite Lyric
It is a throwaway lyric / joke that makes me laugh each time. In the second song of the show, “God That’s Brilliant”, the narcissistic and elitist MI5 agents are singing about the “brilliant” plans they are going to pitch to their superior to get the Germans out of Sicily, which all boil down to “let’s just kill Hitler” (highlight verse of the song is Fleming’s which turns into yet another James Bond-esque plot to the chagrin of his colleagues).
As the song is wrapping up, each member of MI5 is saying bits and pieces of their plans, and the lead of the show, the anxious and much less self-assure Charles Cholmondeley pipes in with his objections (in parnetheses to denote his parts).
🎵 Hitler's on the train / or a boat (or other vehicle) We send in an assassin / or a robot, (that's illegal)🎵
Just the fact after a whole song of nonsense plans, his biggest problem is the legality of sending a robot. Gets me everytime. See my first post for a video of this number in action.
5. If you only have time for one song
The obvious answer is “Dear Bill” sung by Hester Leggatt. In order to make the body believable, they place on the body of “Bill Martin” theatre tickets, receipts, pictures, and a love letter. Hester, a secretary, draws on her own experience of losing a loved one in World War I (note the name change at 3:18) to write the letter after the laughably bad attempt of her less-experienced-in-love colleagues.
Surrounded by such comedic songs, this heartbreaking number stops the show. You can see why Jak Malone won a Tony Award for his portrayal of Hester this year. It was actually this song in a sponsored ad that really got me to pick up the album again. So I guess ads work!
6. Concluding thoughts
“I believe they call it a glitzy finale!” This small show has a lot of heart, a lot of laughs, and is pretty much a no-skips album. The music is very modern, pop-y Broadway and full of Easter Eggs and references. You’ll hear musical notes reminiscent of Aladdin, Hamilton, Six, Billy Elliot, and even briefly The Star Spangled Banner. If you are into British comedy and/or musicals based on real history, this is a show for you. The crux of the musical is how great deeds and great ideas can come from those you least expect. Like Charles Cholmondeley, a quiet and anxious ex-pilot who came up with the plan that started the downfall of the Axis Powers. Or Glyndwr Michael, the homeless man who accidentally injested rat poison and became Major Bill Martin. If you aren’t into musicals and just subscribed to this because you’re nice, but are still asking yourself “wow I want to know more about this operation!”, there’s a (more serious in tone, non-musical) movie of the same title currently playing on Netflix starring Colin Firth.
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Sold! I really want to see this show now.