“Operation Mincemeat” at the Fortune Theatre – 13/06/25

You’ll never guess what VK and I did last night….that’s right, yet more theatre. And there is more to come this weekend. “Op Mincemeat” was a bit of a last-minute plan as a friend got one of the lottery codes but the show had to be booked within a couple of weeks. And June is a busy month for us. So, we squeezed it in on a Friday night after work.

It was also incredibly humid when we left the house so we were dressed for summer but carrying raincoats. That would come in handy later. After a very stuffy Victoria line trip, we dived into the Starbucks near Covent Garden for exactly the same icy drinks as we had on our “Hamilton” ” trip.

The Fortune Theatre was only a couple of minutes’ walk away so we still got to our seats in plenty of time. I didn’t realise how tiny the theatre was – I used the word “diddy” to describe it to VK but she made an unfortunate joke about a 90s rapper that I don’t need to repeat here. It really is tiny, so no-one is too far from the stage. The only issue is that we were sitting under the balcony so, similar to the back of the worship hall at church, there seemed to be a bit of an issue with the sound. For a show where there’s lots of technical detail and everything is sung, it would have been good to have a bit more clarity. Especially as I wasn’t familiar with the plot. That’s just the shape of the room and the challenges of a 100-year-old space – I don’t think there was anything that could be done differently. But quibbles aside, we enjoyed it a lot. And the seats were not only much more comfortable than “Gatsby” but they were also in VK’s current favourite colour – cerulean.

If, like me, you’re not familiar with the plot of this show it is this – a group of intelligence officers are looking to change the course of World War II and come up with an absurd plan to do so. It’s good to see the back office intel function getting a bit of the spotlight for once. The whole show is performed by five actors, who often change costume on stage to save time. As the programme says, there are a lot of hats involved. If that sounds confusing, trust me – it can be. But it doesn’t matter too much.

The opening of the show sets out the company’s view on rank and privilege quite clearly – it’s about the public school boys who somehow seem to be in charge, despite being unqualified. Make of that what you will. Then the plot develops as the wacky proposal by the resident geek (Charles Cholmondeley, played by Peter McGovern) turns into reality, enabled by the suave Ewan Montagu (Alex Young). Montagu has no ideas or ability to make detailed plans but he has confidence and charisma and that is sometimes what matters.

The programme bills each actor as having a primary character as well as “others” and you soon lose track of how many extra characters each one is playing. The three other primaries are the ambitious secretary Jean Leslie (Roshani Abbey), the buttoned-up Hester Leggatt (Danny Becker) and the authoritative Johnny Bevan (Chlöe Hart). Between them, they are on stage almost constantly for the 2 hour plus runtime and do all the singing, dancing and set changes. It’s head-spinning.

The plot itself is intriguing and a lot of it is absolutely true, right down to Ewan Montagu eventually writing a screenplay about it. The premise seems unlikely – dropping a corpse onto mainland Europe with fake invasion plans about his person – but it all happened and, even more unbelievably, actually worked. That might be a spoiler but you know we won the war, right? Plus, as VK pointed out, there is a song in the song list called “We Did It”, which tells you that is all works out fine.

But along the way, there is certainly a lot of jeopardy and curveballs, such as an unwanted plane crash involving the most American American to ever set foot on the West End stage. There are fallouts and suspicions, including something that I still would consider to be something of a data breach. Some details do get a little glossed over, such as the ethics of the whole thing but this isn’t intended as a deeply thoughtful piece – it’s a fun, frothy musical about some very unlikely subject matter. Hence the KPop-style Nazi opener of Act 2, which bears no relevance to the plot and is what VK calls “the unfortunate 12-year-old-boy anthem”. It took me a while to realise that she mean it was the anthem that was unfortunate, not the 12-year-old boys. And not the specific 12-year-old boy she bangs on about most of the time. Anyway, that was a bit of an oddity but definitely indicative of a show that does not take itself seriously.

There are some more emotional moments though. “Dear Bill”, as sung in falsetto by Danny Becker is a very moving song in the midst of the chaos. And the bit right at the end when they talk about the true identity of the corpse had VK in tears. Not that that is difficult.

Most of the time though, it’s surreal jokes about newts, physical comedy, dance routines and, of course, hats. There is the odd anachronism – I don’t think they had sudoku in the 1940s – but also a few fourth-wall breaks and a bit of laughing on stage. So, as intricate as the world-building is, they are not too precious about it.

It’s hard to pick out one cast member of the five for praise as they all do such an amazing job with the frantic multi-roleing. I believe Chlöe Hart is the longest serving cast member and she certainly seems to have a natural authority which comes from knowing the play so well. It definitely feels like she could do this all by herself if needed. That makes her a great fit for Johnny but her turn as Ian Fleming is also impressively flamboyant. Alex Young has great charm as Ewan and a lot of energy, especially in the “Just for Tonight” sequence. Peter McGovern as Charles is suitably nervy and paces around the stage like a twitchy puppy but it’s good to see him break out into a more confident character (“Tub”) for a few moments at the end. Roshani Abbey has a great belt when she’s singing and shows a real vulnerability with the character of Jean as well. And then there’s Johnny Becker playing everyone from Hester to Willy to the sinister Spilsbury and showing great versatility with it. Spilsbury was one of VK’s favourite characters though – I think the cape was “very yassss” as these youngsters say.

Oh, and just to say – if you get annoyed at gender-blind casting then this is NOT the show for you. But if, like VK, you’re fond of a bit of tailoring on people of all genders then you’ll be fine. It is a particularly straightforward one to cosplay as well:

Given that I knew nothing of the plot other than a vague explanation from the child on the way in, I enjoyed it a lot. The only song I knew previously was “Sail On, Boys” because it was all over the socials earlier this year and it is not at all typical of the other songs. The fact that this song exists in the same show as one called “Glitzy Finale” suggests that there is really quite a wide variety of musical styles. And the finale was indeed VERY glitzy, and full of surprises.

You know what’s lacking variety? The choice of vegan ice creams in West End theatres. I had vegan salted caramel once again but would love a different variety of Jude’s at some point. I should probably also report back on the toilets, which were the tiniest I’ve been in since “Kathy and Stella” but that’s to be expected, right?

So does it live up to the hype? I reckon so. It’s quirky, individual and has a very British sensibility so it’ll be interesting to see how it plays on Broadway. It’s definitely worth entering the lottery as full price seats are pricey but my friend who gifted us the code seems to win on a semi-regular basis so it’s not impossible to win.

As is now traditional, VK wanted to go to the stage door. I mentioned earlier that it was humid day and what comes after a humid day? That’s right, thunderstorms. I already knew I would regret wearing flipflops but I was grateful for having grabbed a slightly clammy raincoat on the way out. It was one of our less pleasant stage door experiences, but only in terms of the weather. The actors were absolute sweeties and we appreciated them all the more for coming out in such horrendous weather to sign. Especially when some of them (Danny) were, like me, dressed for summer. We didn’t chat much as we didn’t want them to catch pneumonia but we managed to say hi to four of the five, which was great. VK was beaming over her late-night Five Guys.

Since I started writing this post, I have seen a whole other show so am now writing a show behind and should probably wrap things up. So I’ll just leave you with the link for tickets and a most important piece of MI5 wisdom – “Horses can’t inherit”.