Operation Mincemeat description
The Fortune Theatre might be one of Covent Garden’s smallest venues but it has a big heart, and this is one heck of a big play. Operation Mincemeat is being billed as a fast-paced, hilarious and ‘unbelievable’ plot. But it’s actually a true story, one of the most strange and curious tales of the Second World War. Make your way to the Fortune to enjoy a very funny story based around a stolen corpse, a War that’s being lost, and an eccentric mission that ultimately helped the allies score victory over the Nazis.
What's the story behind Operation Mincemeat ?
Described as, ‘Singin’ in the Rain meets Strangers on a Train, Noel Coward meets Noel Fielding’, Operation Mincemeat is the true story of a secret mission that helped the allies win WW2. It was all down to an inspired idea involving a dead tramp, a smart uniform, some false top secret papers, and a Spanish fisherman.
In April 1943, off the coast of southern Spain, a fisherman found a decomposing corpse bobbing around. He was identified as Major William Martin, a British Royal Marine, and had a black briefcase chained to his wrist. The Nazis wanted it, and while Spain was meant to be neutral they shared the documents from the case with the German army.
The official-looking documents revealed plans for allied armies to cross the Mediterranean from North Africa to attack German-held Greece and Sardinia. Hitler saw it as a huge coup and was thrilled. He moved thousands of German troops from France to Greece in advance of what he thought was an enormous invasion. But the whole thing was a hoax.
The dead man was actually a Welsh tramp, who had died eating rat poison then was ‘obtained’ from a London morgue. What an extraordinary plot! Buy cheap tickets for Operation Mincemeat from us and fall in love with a quirky musical like no other.
About Operation Mincemeat
After sell-out runs at New Diorama Theatre in 2019, Southwark Playhouse during 2020 – 2022, and an extended Riverside Studios run in summer 2022, Operation Mincemeat is going to move to the West End, a well-deserved transfer of a musical that has already attracted critical acclaim.
As Suzi Feay says in the Financial Times, “There are some big, blowsy shows around in the West End, but this little belter is staging its own audacious invasion plan”. Neil Norman at the Daily Mirror calls it “a miraculous musical that tells the entire story in a kind of accelerated farce that is part Mel Brooks, part SIX, part Hamilton with a side order of One Man, Two Guvnors.” And Variety’s David Benedict says it’s a “little show with a very big future.”
Buy tickets for Operation Mincemeat
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