Original 'Operation Mincemeat' Cast Passing The Torch

Summary

All Of It – “Original 'Operation Mincemeat' Cast Passing The Torch”

Date: February 11, 2026
Host: Alison Stewart (WNYC)
Guests: Natasha Hodgson, David Cumming, Zoe Roberts (of the Spit Lip comedy group, co-writers and stars of Operation Mincemeat)

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Episode Overview

This episode of All Of It centers on the Broadway hit Operation Mincemeat as its original British creators and cast prepare to hand over the show to an American company. Host Alison Stewart welcomes Natasha Hodgson, David Cumming, and Zoe Roberts—members of the comedy troupe Spit Lip—to discuss the show’s unique journey, the balancing act of humor and history, gender dynamics in both casting and subject matter, and their reflections on cultural reception in the US.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Origins of Spit Lip and Operation Mincemeat

• Meeting and Creative Bond (03:18):
  Natasha, Zoe, and David met at the University of Warwick, bonding over shared sensibilities and British comedy. They formed a theater company, went to Edinburgh Fringe, and, after commercial failures, put everything into creating a musical with Felix Hagan.
• Natasha Hodgson:

  "We formed a theatre company out of university... kept making shows together that were critically acclaimed and commercial. Absolute failures, no money whatsoever. And then one day we thought to ourselves, God, if we're ever going to make this, we really got to put all our eggs in the basket... Oper Minsk was the result of that experiment." (03:18)

Discovering the Comedy in a True WWII Espionage Story

• Turning History into Farce (06:20):
  The team saw the operation’s absurdity as prime comedy fodder—equal parts heist, farce, and caper. The true story's wildness often exceeded what audiences would believe.
• Zoe Roberts:

  "In all of our research... it leapt forward as a comedy... It's sort of Ocean's Eleven with spies in the war." (06:20)

• On Fact vs. Fiction:

  "The more you write, the more you realize actually what we need space for is for people to connect with these characters and care about what's happening." (06:20)
  The wildest-seeming details are often the most factual.

The Writing Process: Research and Refinement

• Immersion in History (08:06):
  Their process spanned podcasts, memoirs, films, and extensive reading. Balancing fidelity to facts and dramatic needs was their greatest challenge.
• David Cumming:

  "We actually probably did eventually... far too much research... It was very important to us that we don't misrepresent these people or... lie and don't change what happened. But ultimately, you also have to respect the dramatic arc of a piece of theatre." (08:06–09:30)

Gender and Casting: Subverting and Illuminating Norms

• Fluid Casting Choices (11:23):
  Spit Lip cast their shows based on comedic fit, often disregarding gender for both creative and practical reasons. This evolved into a subversive choice for the World War II story, naturally raising questions about gender and representation.
• David Cumming:

  "We've always cast a show just based on whoever's funniest for the part… In a story which is full of rich, entitled, privileged white men, having a number of those characters played by women… raises these more modern questions around gender identity..." (11:32)

• On Audience Reactions:

  "Bringing these questions up in an interesting way was never our intention, but quickly became obvious to us that it was an important part of what audiences were taking away." (13:16)

• Natasha Hodgson:

  "It lets people come to it versus trying to feel like... we're trying to attack them with issues of... gender... We get to surreptitiously feed them a bit of gender policy in with the mix." (13:16)

Centering Women's Stories in a Male-Dominated Narrative

• Highlighting Overlooked Women (14:01):
  The cast worked to give space to historical women who were crucial yet marginalized, such as Hester Leggett and Jean Leslie.
• Zoe Roberts:

  "We really wanted to do justice to these women... Those two women kind of learning from each other... has become a real kind of important through line to the show." (14:01)

• On Realism, Not Rewriting History:

  "It would be an insult to the women who were lost to these histories... it felt important to have that simmering alongside with the... fun joy." (15:39)

• Historical Context:

  "The 40s really was... a huge drive forward in British feminism... but then all the men came back and it was like, back to the home." (16:32–17:03)

Musical Diversity: Style and Purpose

• Varied Musical Palette (19:03):
  The team avoided 1940s musical clichés, favoring genre variety to fit the story’s moment, from classic girl pop to modern rave.
• David Cumming:

  "It was very important to us early on that... it had to not in any way feel old... Every song... we gave ourselves freedom to be whatever is the right vibe." (19:03)

• Notable Musical Number: 'All the Ladies' (17:54):
  Sample lyrics and genre nods (Beyoncé’s 'Single Ladies') underscore how the music reinforces themes of gender and generational shift.
• David Cumming:

  "It's a real... surprising moment of the show because all you've watched is just a bunch of men in offices... and suddenly... it's this big girl group number..." (19:13)

Character Explorations

• Ewan Montague (Natasha Hodgson):

  "Boisterous, impatient, curious... a person who gives confidence to those who are in his golden glow... these kind of, you know, the Danny Oceans, who... can get you along with a scheme, but they can cut you out... just as quickly." (21:34)

• Charles Cholmondeley (David Cumming):

  "He and Ewan are two sides of a coin... Chumley has... the brains... but none of the confidence. Ewan doesn't do enough work, but... can get it done... across the show, [Chumley] finds his own two feet..." (22:57–23:49)

• Johnny Bevans (Zoe Roberts):

  "He’s not an antagonist... he’s coming through with the weight and the responsibility of actually what's at stake... he knows that he's kind of gambled on this team... and doesn’t necessarily know whether that was the right thing to do." (25:00–26:56)

Balancing Zany Comedy and Emotional Depth

• Song Placement: 'Dear Bill' (27:18):
  A touching ballad interrupts the show’s frenetic pace, offering a moment of vulnerability and historical reality.
• Natasha Hodgson:

  "We wanted to interrupt this crazy adventure with this real moment of, like, these women who... have already gone through so much loss and are having to do it a second time... we wanted a moment in the show of, like, real peace and... heartfelt emotion." (28:02)

• Zoe Roberts:

  "She doesn't know that she's about to open up and sort of be that vulnerable... it catches her by surprise." (29:37–30:15)

American vs. British Audiences

• Cultural Reception (30:21):
  American audiences are notably more vocal and quick to catch on to physical and farcical humor, possibly due to the national tradition of vaudeville and slapstick.
• David Cumming:

  "American audiences are definitely more vocal… but also... seem to get the game that we're playing much more quickly than they ever did in the UK." (30:22)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the research process:
  David Cumming (08:06):

  "We actually probably did eventually... far too much research... That allowed us to know which bits of the story to pull on."

• On genre experimentation:
  David Cumming (19:13):

  "All the Ladies comes at a point where you meet Jean for the first time... It's a classic girl pop track. We lean into that heavily."

• On gender-bending casting:
  David Cumming (13:16):

  "Bringing these questions up in an interesting way was never our intention, but quickly became obvious to us that it was an important part of what audiences were taking away."

• On highlighting women’s history:
  Zoe Roberts (14:01):

  "We really wanted to do justice to these women... figuring out that there are different ways to make a difference has become a real kind of important through line to the show."

• On vulnerability in performance:
  Zoe Roberts (29:54):

  "She [Hester Leggett] doesn't know that she's about to open up... she starts off just dictating a letter as it needs to be... and then it kind of drifts into... somewhere a lot more vulnerable."

• On cultural difference in audiences:
  David Cumming (30:22):

  "American audiences are definitely more vocal... seem to get the game that we're playing much more quickly than they ever did in the UK."

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Important Segment Timestamps

• [03:18] Origins & early creative partnership at university
• [06:20] Turning a true story into a zany comedy
• [08:06] Research and balancing fact with musical structure
• [11:32–13:16] Gender-swapped casting and audience reactions
• [14:01] Centering and honoring women's stories in wartime history
• [17:54] 'All the Ladies' musical number and its genre/cultural impact
• [21:34–26:56] In-depth breakdown of major characters
• [27:18–30:15] Placement and emotional impact of 'Dear Bill'
• [30:21] Reflections on differences between British and American audiences

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Summary

In a lively and thoughtful conversation, the original creative team behind Operation Mincemeat reflects on their roots, artistic process, and the unique brand of historical musical comedy they’ve brought to Broadway. They discuss their philosophy of casting for comedy and fit rather than gender, their commitment to representing both the absurdity and seriousness of war, and their efforts to highlight women's stories that were nearly erased from history. The team also shares how American audiences’ comedic sensibilities enhance the show’s impact.

With Tony nominations, rich characters, and a genre-defying sound, Operation Mincemeat stands out as a rare blend of irreverence and feeling. As Zoe, Natasha, and David prepare to "pass the torch" to an all-American company, this episode captures the wit, creativity, and heart that define both the show and its creators.

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Transcript

[Alison Stewart]

This is all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. It's Valentine's Day this Saturday, in case you needed a reminder. Tomorrow on the show, we'll explore the true meaning of romance. Anna Martin of the New York Times podcast Modern Love will be here to take your calls on the most romantic thing you've ever experienced. Plus, with the new film adaptation of Wuthering Heights, we'll discuss the novel that inspired it and whether it can be called a romance novel. And on Friday, we'll continue our exploration of love in literature with the owner of the romance bookstore, the Ripped Bodice. And a call in about the hit series based on a book heated rivalry that's in the future. Let's get this hour started on Broadway. Time is running out to catch the original cast of the Broadway winning historical musical comedy Operation Mincemeat. The show is on Broadway through mid September, but the final performance for the show's original West End players is Sunday, February 22nd. Here's what the show's about. In the midst of World War II, a group of British agents concocted a plan to trick Nazi forces. The Germans thought the Allies were invading Sardinia when they really planned to land in Sicily. I could explain it to you, but the cast does a really great job summing it up in a song. It here's the pitch from Operation Mincemeat.

[Natasha Hodgson]

What if a British pilot crashed his plane, then washed ashore in the south.

[David Cumming]

Of Spain, his body forgotten, rotting in the sun?

[Natasha Hodgson]

So we've lost our man, our hideous hero, The Spanish get away from him.

[David Cumming]

Oh, dios mio.

[Natasha Hodgson]

And then. Oh, I'm sorry, no.

[David Cumming]

Now you go.

[Natasha Hodgson]

You can do this, Charlie.

[David Cumming]

So they find our man.

Yes, I get the gist.

And the briefcase we fix to his.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Wrist, jam packed with details of our next attack. Heck, if you see what we're saying.

[David Cumming]

But how does this send the Germans to Sardinia?

[Natasha Hodgson]

Oh, Johnny, I know that the suspense is killing you. Relax and we'll tell you all that.

[David Cumming]

You need to know.

[Alison Stewart]

Operation Mincemeat earned four Tony nominations including best musical and Jack Malone took home best featured actor in a musical. Earlier on in the show's run, I spoke with three of its co stars and co writers. Natasha Hodgson, who stars as Ewan Montague, a blowhard desperate for a moment of glory. And he teams up with a timid man named Charles who is really the brains behind the operation. He's played by David Cumming. And then there are many other characters. So many, in fact, that Zoe Roberts plays more than 20 different people. Zoe Roberts, Natasha Hodson and David Cumming are all members of the comedy group Spit Lip. They co wrote and star in Operation Mincemeat. Their last performance will be Sunday, February 22nd. After that, they'll be passing the torch to an all American cast who. Who will carry the show through its seventh extension to September 13th. When I sat down with Zoe Roberts, Natasha Hodgson and David Cumming, I started by asking Natasha how she and Zoe and David first met.

[Natasha Hodgson]

We, the three of us met at university. We met at the University of Warwick and we had little tiny babies and we just really bonded and clicked over watching, like, British comedy together, lots of, like, films together. And we. And we loved making weird stories. And we formed a theatre company out of university where we went to Edinburgh Fringe a bunch of times, loads of comedies. And we just kind of kept making shows together that were critically acclaimed and commercial. Absolute failures, no money whatsoever. And then one day we thought to ourselves, God, if we're ever going to make this, we really got to put all our eggs in the basket. And we tried. We decided to try and write a full musical together with another guy, Felix Hagan, who's the fourth member of Spit Lip and. Yeah, and Oper Minsk was the result of that experiment.

[Interviewer/Host (possibly Alison Stewart or another host)]

Zoe, how did you know that you had a similar sensibility? Do you remember a moment?

[Zoe Roberts]

Oh, no. I wish I was young enough that it was so recent to remember a moment. I think we sort of. We were writing a bunch of stuff together and writing, like, sketches and characters and I think an early show I wrote at university. Writing and going, I know Dave can do this part and will be hilarious. I'm gonna write these stupid things. Cause I know he's gonna say them and make them even more stupid. Oh, Tash actually is gonna do this role. Brill. So beautiful because she's so stupid. But I think it means that we discovered the joy of writing for each other really early on. And knowing that what your friends are going to bring to the table in terms of delivery is going to amp up what you're writing is really special.

[Interviewer/Host (possibly Alison Stewart or another host)]

What's changed since you started? You started in 2017, it's 2025. What's changed about Spit Lips?

[David Cumming]

I think we're probably slightly better at writing musicals than when we started writing this one. We are definitely faster knowing when things are right and responding to an audience and it. But it has taken legit seven years to get it to be this final product that's currently on Broadway, where I think we'd probably agree it's probably at its strongest form, because we've had enough. Enough tries at it now. It's a hard thing to make a musical, regardless of what kind of musical it is, but particularly musical comedy, because the marrying of the rhythm of the comedy with the rhythm of the. Of the music and the ebb and flow of emotions, it's a really complex puzzle. And once you change one bit, suddenly many bits around it no longer make sense. And so every. Every tweak you make, there's another 10 more tweaks that then have to be done. And so it takes a while. I think we are. We. Our sensibilities as writers have got more honed and more refined, and I think we're braver with emotions. I think we were younger and we were purely just writing comedy initially. And this story has led us to add in much more emotional heft to the story because the story asks for that. And I think we're probably braver, actually.

[Alison Stewart]

Now, Zoe, let's talk about Operation Mincemeat. It's received a very, you know, serious treatment in a film with Colin Firth and in a history book. When you first heard about it, what struck you as funny?

[Zoe Roberts]

I mean, it's so funny. We get that question because to us, it leapt off the page. In all of our research and in the podcast we listened to about it, it leapt forward as a comedy, it's sort of. It's almost like a gang comedy. It's part heist. You know, it's sort of Ocean's Eleven with spies in the war. It's a group of people going to insane lengths to achieve this kind of amazing thing. And if anything, we've had to kind of pare down the insanity that is within the true story, because A, people just didn't believe us and they thought we were making it up, and B, we just didn't have room for it. The more you write, the more you realize actually what we need space for is for people to connect with these characters and care about what's happening. And. And if you're spending 10 minutes on a. On a zany race car driver who was partially blind, who insisted on driving up to. Up to Scotland and, you know, almost crashing into cinema.

[Interviewer/Host (possibly Alison Stewart or another host)]

This is all true.

[Zoe Roberts]

That was all true.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Well, the war magician who tried to get his. This angel in, Jasper Maskelyne, who believed he could, you know, trick the Germans with inflatable tanks, we had him in. We had to cut him.

[Zoe Roberts]

You know, you have to start editing yourself. But, I mean, we found out that the movie was happening. I think the day of our first performance back in 2019, we sort of released.

[David Cumming]

There was a lot going on because.

[Natasha Hodgson]

It was like a press release. It was like, John Madden has taken the rights to Operation. We're like, oh, my God. It was always like, any day before opening, you're in hell anyway. And being like, okay, co guys, don't worry. Just remember the lines and try to do the songs. And by the way, it's gonna be a movie.

[Zoe Roberts]

But I think what's lovely is that all of the treatments of the story are so different, you know, that it. That it feels like a completely different retelling. And it feels like you can enjoy both of them in very different ways.

[Interviewer/Host (possibly Alison Stewart or another host)]

What was the research process like, David Scattergun.

[David Cumming]

We were just kind of. We found it initially via a podcast, There's Stuff youf Should Know podcast, which Tasha's brother passed on to her, saying, I've got this. I've found something that should be musical. We were very little brothers. What are they good for? Musicals. So we listened to that, and then we read Montague's own book and then watched his own film that he put himself in. He's a great guy. Yeah, what a guy. And then read every book we could possibly find, every bit of research on the Internet. And just anytime something kind of jumped out as we could see it theatrically, we just put a pin in it and go, right, if we were to stage this moment, how would we do that? What would be the. The kind of. How do we boil it down to its essence? What would be the hook in the song? What would be the two lines? That would be the refrain, and then we'd all take it away and go from there. And. Yeah, we actually probably did eventually. Probably far too much research, such a big topic, but I think that then allowed us to know which bits of the story to pull on. And then initially, we were quite. We still are. It's very important to us that we don't misrepresent these people or that we don't lie and don't change what happened. But ultimately, you also have to respect the dramatic arc of a piece of theatre and that you need to massage things so that the audience feel them correctly at the right time, but without lying. And that was quite a difficult process with this story, I think.

[Interviewer/Host (possibly Alison Stewart or another host)]

Yeah, Tasha was gonna ask about that. The idea of being committed to detail, but also having to fulfill the goal of a musical.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Yeah, it was definitely like. That was the process, I think, from our first show in 2019 to, you know, where it is. Now, that's been the kind of biggest. The biggest challenge for us is making sure that the drastic arc of the show, but also the arc of all the characters. You know, we have five characters at the center of this story, all of whom that we really care about and we want the audience to invest in. How do we make sure that we spend enough time with each of them that they have, you know, that their stories are satisfying whilst making sure that we don't, you know, tip into total fantasy. But I think the great thing about theatre is that it's such a. It's such a, you know, for us, romantic and exciting medium in that you can have girls play boys and boys play girls. And so I think with the story of it all taking a certain liberty here and there, I think the audience come out going, wow, that was an amazing. That was amazing take. And a lot of people kind of go, I really want to know now which bits were completely true and which bits were, you know, but. But I think what's, what's great is all the craziest stuff in the show is the. Is the stuff that's real. Because we would never want to make up anything crazy that happened because we can't do that. We can't do the story. So when we know when, when the American, you know, we have this point where an American pilot, cr crashes into Spain with the same name as the guy with the corpse they want to use. At the same time, the whole team mission goes, what? Who's this guy now? And the audience kind of go, oh, that's fun that they've made that up. But actually, like, no, that's. It's a crucial point.

[David Cumming]

You literally have the line, you couldn't write it.

[Natasha Hodgson]

You couldn't write it because. Yeah, and it was these points in the research that every new thing we found out, we were just like, this is absolutely mad. It was just such an exciting story to uncover and follow that we just couldn't wait to put it on a stage so the audience could follow it with us.

[Alison Stewart]

My guests are David Cumming, Natasha Hodson and Zoe Roberts. They are the stars and the co writers of the new Broadway musical Operation Mincemeat. It's about a covert British intelligence mission carried out during World War II. As you can understand, it was.

[Interviewer/Host (possibly Alison Stewart or another host)]

Zany is running now at the Golden Theatre.

[Alison Stewart]

You mentioned Tasha about boys playing girls, girls playing boys. David, why was that a decision that you decided to make?

[David Cumming]

So since we started making work, we've always cast a show just based on whoever's funniest for the part or whoever we think as writers can do the best voice or has the funniest face, like genuinely just whatever we think would be the funniest. And so we've kind of just inherited that as part of our practice. And also for monetary reasons, we could barely afford to pay ourselves, let alone employ an entire new cast of people. So if we put ourselves in the show, then we only have to pay two extra people. So that part helped. But then once we started doing this specific story in that way, it became very clear to us of the importance of presenting the show. Presenting the story in that manner. In a story which is full of rich, entitled, privileged white men. Having that story told, having a number of those characters played by women who are taking up space, who are acting like men. The show never really the meat and veg of the show on the actual paper, the script. There's nothing queer about the show in that sense. But actually presenting the show in the way that we do raises these more modern questions around gender identity and how people get to be in the world and how they get to move around the world and who we allow to say things, who we don't allow to say things in a way that I think audiences. It kind of washes over them, and they. They take away from it after the show, they start thinking about those topics. I think we've had people come forward saying, oh, my, you know, my older. My elderly parents, a week after the show suddenly turned around. I've been thinking a lot about how in that show, you know, that woman was just allowed to walk around the. Walk around and act like a man, and actually, you know, and you didn't notice it. Didn't notice it. And actually, maybe women should be allowed to do. And just bringing these questions up in an interesting way was never our intention, but quickly became obvious to us that it was an important part of what audiences were taking away.

[Natasha Hodgson]

I think also what's nice about it is that it kind of lets people come to it versus trying to feel like they are. We're trying to attack them with issues of, like, you know, difficult or spiky gender issues. I think particularly for, you know, certain members of an older generation can be quite a difficult or strange thing to kind of try and get your head around. Whereas if it's just like your daughter being like, we're gonna go see a play about World War II, the dads are like, yes, please. World War II. That's what we like. And then we get to kind of surreptitiously Feed them a bit of sort of, yeah, gender policy in with the mix.

[Interviewer/Host (possibly Alison Stewart or another host)]

Yeah. So we talked about it. Like, the 1940s gender issue comes up in a lot of ways because the women are treated as sort of like, oh, get with the T occasionally. Why did you want to explore that gender dynamic in that period of British history?

[Zoe Roberts]

I think that actually sprung from the mostly absence of women. In a lot of the research we did, you know, we were putting together this kind of core group that were involved, and there were these women that would occasionally crop up in the retelling that Hester Leggett and Jean Leslie, who were pretty integral to the mission, but they would disappear from the narrative. You know, we would go, oh, well, what happened to them after the mission? Or, you know, what were they doing at this point? And they just weren't present. And it was a real stark reminder that, you know, these narratives are largely told by men who have that kind of power. And it's sort of a small microcosm of history as told by the victors, which is also a big. A big thing we kind of touch on. But it meant that we. We really wanted to do justice to these women. And actually we. Their narratives are probably the part of the show that we had to work quite hard to craft, and it took a long time for us to figure out those journeys. And we have a kind of a woman in the older generation who is kind of slightly more resigned to the fact that her place in the workplace is quite limited. And you can get stuff done, but you have to do it in a certain way and without pushing these boundaries. And then we have Jean, played, amazingly, by Claire Marie hall, who is of the younger generation, and she's coming in and she's seeing this as an opportunity, as an opportunity to get involved and to make a. And to change stuff. And I think that really spoke to us as something that we wanted to give it space and time on that stage. And those two women kind of learning from each other and figuring out that there are different ways to make a difference has become a real kind of important through line to the show. I think.

[Natasha Hodgson]

I think as well, what we didn't want to do is kind of end those stories with, like. And don't worry, young Gene Leslie ended up running Mi5 because, like, you know, it would be an insult to the women who were lost to these histories because, like, the reasons that they didn't get to these parts is not because they weren't capable, it's because at every level, there was somebody above them, a Man saying you should know your place and you know, you spoke to that moment, which is of course, yes, there's a point in the show where Gene Leslie has kind of taken off mission purely because really she annoys the older, you know, man. But that, you know, it's a really crucial moment for us that we wanted to put in because we didn't want to patronize anyone or kind of claim that that wasn't the case, you know. And these women do get to, you know, they get to get so far. But ultimately in these structures as they stand, you cannot get any further than the person that had the gatekeeper allows you to. And it felt important to kind of have that simmering along alongside with the. The fun joy of it, which is the most important thing.

[David Cumming]

It was in the particular time period, the 40s really was such. Because all the men did go away to war. It was such a huge drive forward in British feminism. And I imagine it was the same in America. But then the 50s was. The backlash of that is that all the men came back and it was like back to the home. And then the sexual revolution. The 60s was the kind of answer to that. But that moment in time, the 60s would never have happened had the 40s not have happened of the women getting out in the workplace. And so that energy of Jean then being quashed kind of represents that kind of history of what happened to women's rights.

[Natasha Hodgson]

We really were inspired by the accounts of the women who, like the Wrens who got to fly aircrafts that they never would have been trained on because they needed women to come and be in the forces. And these women, like look back on their lives. They were like, it was just the most exciting time and so amazing and like, yes, we were in a war, but my God, we were given responsibility and we were. We could. We stretched ourselves and we showed what we could do. And it was just like that thing of both that being so amazing and. But also heart wrenching of being like, you had this moment and then the men came back and took it off you. And like we were really angry. I think part of our story is putting our anger at that into the story that we wanted to tell.

[Interviewer/Host (possibly Alison Stewart or another host)]

I want to play a clip from Operation Mincemeat. This is all the ladies and we can talk about it on the other side.

[Alison Stewart]

Side.

[David Cumming]

When I was a girl, they thought I was crazy cuz I wasn't gagging for a man and a baby. I set my sights on joining the Navy, but this isn't the right kind of life. For a lady. Okay, guess it's a no go Take my double X chromosome I go home and stagnate Cook clean and sweet look great and just wait till somebody wants to procreate but wait a minute, what's that sound? War drums coming, getting so loud and all of that Men folk alive like there's a fight Warm, fun Grab a dark killer horn There's a war to be won get there overseas Creating job vacancies is plain to see the way to get from A to Z for us is filling up the factories and so let's go roll up our sleeves and show our expertise no more running side saddle it's time for our battle to start getting the system Ripping apart all the ladies on your mask and said take this rule for all you can get is conflicts are best opportunity.

[Alison Stewart]

That'S from Operation Mincemeat.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Okay.

[Alison Stewart]

All the ladies. Sounds a little bit like single ladies, a little Hannah Les G there. Throughout the entire musical, we get different genres of music. We won't even talk about the rave drum.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Keep the secret, Keep a secret.

[Alison Stewart]

What was the inspiration for the way the music evolved? You wanna take it, David?

[David Cumming]

Yeah. So it was very important to us early on that if we were going to be making a musical about World War II, that it had to not in any way feel old or like.

[Alison Stewart]

It was Andrew Sisters.

[David Cumming]

Yeah, exactly. So the look of the show has never been particularly fully rooted in reality of 1943. So the set's very bright, and it was very important to us musically that the. The music wasn't just jazz music from the 40s. And so every song we would. We kind of gave ourselves freedom to be whatever is the right vibe for every moment in the show. That's. That's the style of music we're going to go for. And all the Ladies comes at a point where you meet Jean for the first time. As we've said, she's this young character who is part of the new wave of women who are like, hey, we're in the workplace and I don't. I'm not gonna do what men tell me anymore. And this is really exciting. So it's the first time you get a much more modern sound in the. In the sonic palette. And it's a classic girl pop track. We lean into that heavily. All of us dress up as women and become the backing dancers. It's like. It's a real, like, surprising moment of the show because all you've watched is just a bunch of men in offices up until that point and suddenly go to the sexually pool. And it's this big girl group number and like Claire Marie just hitting all these high notes and riffing. And we do in fact do a tiny bit of the single ladies dance as part of it. Like it's a homage. So, yeah, it's one of the fun moments of the show. And then there's a few other moments where we zoom into, like super modern, modern sounds which we won't talk about, but that's to represent the kind of modern ideology of the time. We were like the other politics that were happening around the time of the 40s, this new ideology coming forward. And that should be represented by the most modern sound we can find, which would be modern pop.

[Alison Stewart]

Basically, we're discussing Operation Mincemeat. We'll be back after a quick break. This is all of it. I'm Alison Stewart. We're talking about Operation Mincemeat, the hilarious historical musical comedy about World War II espionage that came to us last year from London's West End. Along with the original British cast, they'll be passing the torch to an all American cast after February 22nd. So this is your last chance to catch the show in its original glory. Last spring, I spoke about the show with its co stars and co writers, Zoe Roberts, Natasha Hodgson and David Cumming. So let's get back into that discussion. I asked Natasha for her top three adjectives to describe her character. Ewan Montague.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Oh, my favorite man. I probably use boisterous, impatient, curious. I think that's probably a generous. You know, I play the guy every night, so I have to. But I think, I think what's really great about him as a character is that he's a very much a kick the door down. You will listen to me. My ideas are good. And he's the kind of person who drags anyone in his orbit along with that. I feel like he's a person who gives confidence to those who are in his golden glow. And those people include Charles Cholmondeley and the Gene Leslie who were talking about earlier, the younger female character, when, you know, when he spots Gene Leslie, he genuinely believes this is a person who is brilliant, who should be in this with us. But the problem with those types of people, those golden glow people, is that the second they decide to turn their golden glow off, you're left out in the dark. And that's the kind of, the more darker side of him as a character, I think, of all those kind of types of fascinating people. These kind of, you know, the, the Billy Flynns, the oceans you know, the Danny Oceans, who, they can get you along with a scheme, but they can cut you out of it just as quickly. And they fascinate us and they horrify us. And I love, you know, it's an honor for me to play that darned man every night.

[Alison Stewart]

David. Charlie starts out sort of unsure of himself. He grows into himself a little bit.

[Interviewer/Host (possibly Alison Stewart or another host)]

How did you want to shape his arc?

[David Cumming]

So he starts off as he. Him and Ewan are the two sides of a coin, basically, that they have what each other don't have. So Chumley has all the brains and the hard work and the. The kind of rigor of his ideas, but none of the confidence to get them pushed through. And that is what Ewan has. Ewan doesn't do enough work, but he certainly can.

[Natasha Hodgson]

He gets it done. What do you want?

[David Cumming]

But from all accounts, actually, this, the real life Charles Cholmondeley, this process of doing this mission and it succeeding kind of made him into the man he then later went on to become. He actually disappears from the story because unlike you in Montague, he was quite serious about being an MI5 agent. And when he kind of disappears from the story, the last thing you hear is he goes off to hunt locusts in the Middle east after the war. That's the last thing you know. And that's sure. Like, sure. As if you're doing that, you're in the Middle east post war. I'm sure you're hunting locus.

[Alison Stewart]

Hunting locusts.

[David Cumming]

Of course. Of course you are. You're definitely not working with the British government yet. But the arc needed to be that he. He doesn't have the thing inside of him. He. He is different inside than he is outside. So he sings a song called Dead in the Water where he talks about. He wishes he was. He wishes he was a maggot, because at least a maggot then knows it's gonna become a fly, and it becomes a fly and it can do the thing it's meant to do. And he doesn't have it in him to express his inner world outwardly. Yet across the show, he then finds his own two feet, learns from Gene, learns from Monty, learns from the whole process, that the things that matter aren't being praised for your ideas. It's the change that you make, and that's why you do it. And actually he kind of grows into the man that. He sees all these other men at the beginning of the show and wants to be one of them. And actually he grows beyond them to say what you're Looking for isn't correct. What I'm trying to do here is something a bit grander, not granite. It's more meaningful. More meaningful. Thank you.

[Interviewer/Host (possibly Alison Stewart or another host)]

So you play many roles, but we'll concentrate on Johnny Bevans, the officer in charge of Charles and Montague. And he has to approve the mission. And he's under a lot of pressure.

[Zoe Roberts]

Yes, yes. He's not always, like, you know, having the most fun time in the show, but he's basically sort of trying to wrangle this group of absolutely chaotic idiots who are having the best time of their lives. And I think it's important that he's there. I think in a lot of shows he would be an antagonist. And it was really important to us that he's not the antagonist. He's not this sort of authority figure who is. I mean, yes, he's not ruining everybody's fun. He's just. He's coming through with the weight and the responsibility of actually what's at stake. And that is really, really important. And if he wasn't there kind of trying to push all of this through, nothing would get done. But him and Montague are particularly sort of at odds with each other because there is that sort of.

[Natasha Hodgson]

I call it a bromance. You're only hurting your feelings here, but that's fine.

[Zoe Roberts]

But I think it is. It's because that sort of. That blasting through on charm and a hope and a wing and a prayer. Sometimes Bevan has to take those risks. But he doesn't like that it is on such a knife edge. He sees the bigger picture. He's a man who is. As soon as he goes off stage from the scene you're watching, he's going into a thousand different meetings and authorizing a thousand different plans, you know, sort of.

[Natasha Hodgson]

He was also the only guy who wasn't from the poshest of the posh, wasn't he?

[Zoe Roberts]

Yeah. Yeah. And so I think he sort of sees that level of privilege for what it is and wants to kind of check that instinct.

[David Cumming]

He doesn't quite. And he doesn't have quite the. It's not callous, the devil may care attitude to the fact that these are people's, real people's lives that you're playing with in a war. And that weighs heavily on him, more so than anyone else.

[Zoe Roberts]

Yeah, he's very, very aware of what will happen if this doesn't come off, or I think, worse if they go for this and it fails, it will actually make the situation worse. It will actually expose, you know, the deception that the British were trying to do and actually make things 10 times worse in the war. So he knows that he's kind of gambled on this team of people and doesn't necessarily know whether that was the right thing to do. And that's that kind of tension that he's living with throughout.

[Alison Stewart]

I want to play the clip of Dear Bill.

[Interviewer/Host (possibly Alison Stewart or another host)]

Dear Bill is a song that is sung by Secretary Hester Leggett. She was a real person, and she's singing about her own experience having a loved one in World War I. And it's a love letter she's singing about, let's listen to it and we can talk about it on the other side.

[Claire Marie Hall]

And why did we meet in the middle of a war? What a silly thing for anyone to do. And I'm trying my best to write everything down, to fill in the gaps so that when you're around, it'll feel like you've never been gone, as if you'd been here all along. Cause you can't just miss out on the songs.

[Interviewer/Host (possibly Alison Stewart or another host)]

People were crying in the audience during this moment in the show with all these wild and zany moments. And then there's this beautiful, soft moment in the middle of the show. How did you decide where you would put that song?

[Natasha Hodgson]

That's such a good question. I think what we knew was that we. We had this character, Hester Leggett, and she was a mystery to us because we had such scant information, this book. But what we knew about her was that she was nicknamed the Spin the Spinster. And she was known as the kind of the furious, scary woman of the office. That was one fact we knew. But we also knew that she was the one who'd written a love letter for bills for this fake corpse's fiance that was filled with this really tender, youthful energy. And it had the line in it that we read together, why did we go and meet in the middle of a war? What a silly thing for anyone to do. And we read that together and we kind of thought, my God, like, how can these two facts, you know, how can they sit together? And that was where the sort of. The song was born of this. We wanted to interrupt this crazy adventure with this real moment of, like, these. These women who. You know, these old women during World War II who have already gone through so much loss and are having to do it a second time. And that was just. It really struck us. And we knew that we wanted a moment in the show of, like, real peace and also a real genuine, heartfelt emotion. And we thought it was right that we kind of gave it to this female character, but we feel like it hits all the more because it comes kind of out of nowhere. It comes out of this really crazy homage sequence called Making a Man, where the gang are gallivanting around the town having a time of their lives. And then we just wanted to kind of pull the rug and kind of go, yes, they're having a lot of fun. But actually beneath all of that, there's so much heartbreak and so much worry and stress for everyone else who's. Who's living through war.

[Zoe Roberts]

And she's. And she's not. When she starts singing it, she doesn't know that she's about to open up and sort of be that vulnerable. And I think that's quite important for her as a character. She would never kind of go into a conversation and go, well, let me tell you about all my feelings. She starts off just dictating a letter as it needs to be.

[Natasha Hodgson]

It's a job.

[Zoe Roberts]

That's her entire life is. Well, there's a job that needs doing. Okay, I'm gonna do it. And then it kind of drifts into more memory and somewhere a lot more vulnerable. And you realize gradually that actually this was real and she's reliving some stuff. And I think that's what makes it all the more kind of potent. It catches the audience by surprise also, because it catches her by surprise.

[Interviewer/Host (possibly Alison Stewart or another host)]

Last question. What is the difference between an American audience and a British audience?

[Natasha Hodgson]

You've got a minute.

[David Cumming]

American audiences are definitely more vocal, just in general, which is really great for comedy. But also, it seems that I think we've talked about this, I think maybe possibly because of the history of vaudeville and like Lauren Hardy, Buster Keating, that Marx Brothers, you've got a national history of comedy, physical comedy. And so American audiences seem to get the game that we're playing much more quickly than they ever did in the uk.

[Natasha Hodgson]

We're having a great time.

[David Cumming]

We love it.

[Alison Stewart]

That was my conversation with Zoe Roberts, Natasha Hodgson and David Cumming about the musical comedy Operation Mincemeat, which they co wrote and which they all costar. They will be passing the torch to an all American cast after February 22nd to continue the show's Broadway run through September 13th.

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