← MickeyJoTheatre
MickeyJoTheatre
Did Broadway like OPERATION MINCEMEAT? | A review roundup for the West End musical transfer
00:46:46
Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:00]
Mickey Jo
The Olivier Award winning hit British musical comedy Operation Mincemeat began its theatrical life in an off West End venue with only 80 the new diorama. Over the next few years of its development it would continue to play similar runs at similar venues, the likes of Southwark Playhouse and Riverside Studios, before going on to find tremendous success at the Fortune Theatre where it continues to play in London. All of which has paved the way to its opening at the Golden Theatre on Broadway which took place earlier this week. Which means that for the first time this quintessentially British show, which boasted as part of its its UK marketing a record breaking number of five star reviews, has had major exposure to American audiences and American critics. All of which begs the question what did Broadway think? Oh my God. Hey, welcome back to my theatre themed YouTube channel. Or hello to you if you are listening on podcast platforms. My name is Mickey Jo and I am obsessed with all things theatre. I'm also obsessed with the musical Operation Mincemeat. I saw it for the very first time a few years ago just before we headed into the theater closing pandemic of 2020 and I've been lucky enough to watch the later stages show's development. I was lucky enough to cheer it on at the Olivier Awards where it won Best New Musical. And I have been truly rooting for its transatlantic journey and its New York success, much of which will be affected by the events of this last week with the show's press performances and its official opening night which triggers the release of its first Broadway reviews. And that is what we are going to be talking about today. I have not yet seen the show on Broadway, but as a professional theatre critic here on social media I am going to be talking through the reviews which it has received in New York. Now if you have seen the show particularly on Broadway, I would to know what you thought of it. Comment down below with all of your thoughts and feelings, particularly if you identify as an American and if you enjoy this video and you would like to see more theatrical review roundups, make sure you are subscribed to my theatre themed YouTube channel where I cover these sorts of things occasionally, as well as sharing reviews of my own or following me on podcast platforms. And while I think it's always interesting to look at a host of reviews for newly opening shows, these ones are particularly interesting because the show themselves sort of seem to question whether or not they were inherently too British for Broadway. This per a questionnaire distributed by the show show's producers, allegedly in the wake of a comment made by A major personality within the British theatrical ecosystem that caused nervousness among the Broadway investors. I'm not going to tell you who that is, but I'm willing to believe that you can guess in the comments section that particular bit of salacious gossip out of the way. Let's see if that question has been answered. Is Operation Mincemeat too British for Broadway and did Broadway like it? Let's find out. So we are going to begin, as we so often do, with the New York Times review that is sort of deemed to be among the most important. When a show opens on Broadway, it is mixed at best. It may even trend mixed, negative, although it indicates a great many successes of the show. This is from Jesse Green. The show, in any case, has not been awarded the much sought after accolade the critics pick. So he begins by explaining a little bit about the real life Operation Mincemeat, this actual British World War II piece of military strategy that really took place and really did succeed, before posing the question. But is it funny? Whether Operation Mints me? The diverting, if irksome, musical comedy about the plan works as well will depend a lot on your answer to that question. A hit in London, it has come to Broadway, where it opened on Thursday at the Golden Theatre, having paid close attention to differences in accent, dialect and usage between British and American audiences. Open parentheses, public school. There is private school here. Close parentheses, private school. There is also private school here. We have public school and private school, which both essentially mean the same thing. It's very confusing, but neither the authors, a collective called Spit Lip, which also make up three out of the five company members, nor Robert Hastie, appear to have given sufficient thought to our different senses of humour, which is a very real thing. He goes on to say, you may detect in the show's DNA elements of Monty Python, Benny Hill, the play that goes wrong, for sure, and the Hitchcock stage spoof, the 39 Steps. Very much so. But if those influences have made you laugh even as much as they have made me, you may still experience diminishing returns. In the non stop tickling of Operation Mincemeat, the Pythons kept their satire sharp and their sketches quick. Not so here. At more than two and a half hours, the show is hardly svelte, nor with its aim so scattershot, is it clear it is satirizing. And this, I think, puts us slightly in the wrong direction, because I don't think Operation Mincemeat is satirizing any one specific thing explicitly. Nor, I think, is it fair to entirely equate it to the likes of a Monty Python sketch, because I think it has a tremendous amount more heart and sincerity, which I dare say we'll go on to cover a little bit later in this review, but also altogether more cleverness as well. The deceptive thing about this show is it's so silly on the face of it, and willfully so, but there's such a cleverness beneath that. I maintain that Stephen Sondheim would really have appreciated the lyrical work of Operation Mincemeat. But just when you think the show will be one long variation of the Pythons Ministry of Silly Walks routine, it swears to a different men's stupidity about women hired to serve tea. Gene Leslie leads the other girls in a Beyonce tribute called all the Ladies, about making the most of employment opportunities now that the boys are off fighting. Yet the women too are satirized, presented as Blythe opportunists. I have thoughts, but I'm going to hold them. This is even before we get to the celebrity coroner and at the top of Act 2, a producer's homage called Dast's Ubermensch. I don't think think that that's again, explicitly a nod to the producers, that when you're doing musical comedy and you're making the Nazis look stupid, it's sort of the first thing that you think of. But the idea of framing the Nazis and their enthusiasm about the Third Reich as a ridiculous boy band, turning the notions of their movement and the familiar iconography into dance moves, I don't think that really speaks to the producers necessarily. Nor do I think the way that a number like all the Ladies has been characterized indicates a particular understanding of this show's material and why it works. We're not satirizing any one thing, and we're not alternately taking aim at different targets and making fun of all of these different people. It's more a sense that I feel like this may be more familiar, perhaps to a younger perspective of spoofing the entire culture and the way that we traditionally frame these wartime stories with a more contemporary sensibility. It's a little familiar of the kind of silliness and cleverness that runs through a starkid show. I've always thought that about Operation Mincemeat. Like it's very obviously tongue in cheek to consider the perspective of women joining the workforce during the Second World War to be isn't it great all these men are dying and freeing up all these jobs. Obviously it's insincere and I think there's a weird amount of focus on the idea of choosing targets to satirize in this review, because he's still talking about it paragraphs later. No doubt these are all worthy targets, but they tend to be targeted in much the same way regardless of how worthy they are. That was almost a symmetrical sentence. Similarly, as the show swerves from topic to topic, its songs stay mostly in one place. Many are rhythmic ditties verging on rap. Fine for solos, but indecipherable chorally, especially when the rhymes are so vague. Moscow and Crossbow made my ears cringe. Do Americans say Moscow or Moscow? Because that may be. I don't know if that's a pronunciation issue. The tinny orchestration for keyboards, brass and drums doesn't help. This, I actually think, is an entirely legitimate criticism, because for the show to make its way to Broadway and be celebrating its Broadway arrival and have the big marquee and everything else and all of this press around it, and to not have expanded the orchestration beyond a very small number, a number that I'm actually surprised, hasn't been questioned by certain unions in the Broadway sphere. I do think that that is a little bit dubious. And you know, that's a fair enough thing to be pulled up on because it's a great score. I love the score of Operation Mincemeat and I would love to hear it with a fuller sound, but at the same time that is going to make them more profitable to run week on week. And I'm sure that's something that the much talked about producers of this show have been considering. And so Jesse Green frames Operation Mincemeat as a show trying to be something it isn't. Like the corpse in its borrowed uniform. I assume it is purposeful that the sets and costumes by Ben Stones look cheap. I don't think they're cheap, I think they're whimsical. Yet on occasion, amid the tiresome glee, the spit lip authors prove themselves capable of much more. Here we go. I know where this is going. Unexpectedly, a character who seems to be a stock figure, the dowdy matron clucking over the girls in her charge, emerges as someone much richer and better, raising the show along with her. She is Hester Leggett, played in the drag tradition of the music hall by Jack Malone. Green then goes on to talk about Jack Malone's performance of Dear Bill, a legitimately show stopping moment, and it's a mostly descriptive paragraph rather than truly reviewing the thing. But there is a little indication at the end that fabulation and true feeling are mixed to gorgeous effect. There are other flashes of seriousness and thus beauty amidst the hyperactivity of Hastie's staging. And Jesse Green even admits that he was moved by these very big of him. He goes on to remind readers that all of these characters really existed and were also played in a recent screen adaptation. But he highly doubts any of them were as dopey and larky and unserious about their mission as Operation Mincemeat too often portrays them to be. I have terrible news for Jesse Green about the real life Mary Todd Lincoln and a lack of similarities to the version portrayed by Cora Scola, who publicly and proudly did almost no research into her life before writing the big Broadway hit oh Mary. I think there's a real similarity between both of those shows, and not just because they're both very yellow. And yet I think one, you know, created by a staple of New York theatre and cabaret has been taken a lot more favourably than the British Invasion from across the Atlantic. And it's a weird ending to this review. I'll be honest quoting the show. When you write the book, my boy, you're off the hook. Montague sings in a song called Making a Man, meaning that cutting ethical corners doesn't matter if you win. I enjoyed Operation Mincemeat well enough, but I would have enjoyed it much more if I thought that were true on stage. Which goes back to the previous paragraph about them deliberately kind of spoofing and cartoonizing these real life individuals and the work that they did for the war effort and how this helps them to win an Olivier by being a little illegitimate in their portrayal. It's not a historical documentary, it's a musical. I'll be completely honest. And you know, the relatives of the real life individuals were also in attendance at the show's opening night, have been very supportive of the show. So this weird ethical framing feels very bizarre. The real life Hester Leggett's identity, kept sort of as a secret as a result of her close work with MI5, was subsequently found and her work was celebrated years after her death, thanks to fans of Operation Mincemeat. That's a remarkable story. There's now a plaque at the Fortune Theatre. We're going to move on from this New York Times review. I don't think it has an extraordinary amount of credibility, but I think it's difficult when you see a show for the first time, you're trying to put together an entire response to it immediately. And I'm someone who's had the opportunity to see it a handful more times. I don't think it's a particularly good faith response to the thing. However, there seems to be a lot of, I don't know, a lot of willful criticism happening here. Let's carry on then with something that was a little more positive. Let's go to Variety next. This from Frank Rizzo, an astonishing, loopy and very true World War II story about great Britain tricking Germany into believing false invasion plans has been the source material for non fiction books and movie dramas. But this ludicrous 1943 espionage plot involving a corpse, fake papers and an amazing good fortune also lends itself to absurdity. That's the approach the Brit comedy collective Spit Lip takes with Operation Mincemeat and immediately Frank Rizzo gets it. Think of it as Monty Python on speed. We're going to hear that a lot. Is that possibly the best reference point for critics of this age for British comedy of this ilk? I dare say that it is one that had that sort of international awareness and especially because of Spamalot's Broadway history both back in the mid 2000s and then with the revival. Revival more recently. Too British? Not if you want to laugh uproariously and perhaps even unexpectedly shed a tear or two. This is what I was hoping to read. I'm very happy to be seeing this. The original cast, Cumming, Hodgson, Roberts, Jack Malone and Claremory hall now arrives on Broadway with a well seasoned show full of pluck, luck and dazzle and a kind of outrageous and improbable mission of its own. The five actor ensemble under the nimble direction of Robert Hasty. Yes, I concur. Takes a cuckoo and a wee bit horrifying premise and mines it for every gem of a laugh, be it big, small or shameless. Then the creators add an infectious and eclectic score that includes expositional rap. Thank you, Hamilton. Worth pointing out. I do think that that is a legitimate influence there. Sea shanties, ballads and even an electronic dance music number with K popping Nazis. Thank you Mel Brooks again likening it to the Producers, which I suppose were the producers not to have done that first, then you know, I would Spit Lip have had the bravery to do something like that. I mean, there's still criticism of that opening number and the way that it's framed. I've never really thought of the Nazis as K pop, but I have a really limited knowledge of K Pop. Is that a reference that we're all taking from that moment? I'll let you let me know in the comments. At first, Operation Mincemeat might evoke Patrick Barlow's stage adaptation of the 39 Steps. You've got to give it to these critics. They know their theatrical references. Another slapsticky show with a handful of actors playing multiple characters at whiplash speed. But here the creators of Mincemeat manage something else that's quite remarkable. Though the main characters are played for laughs, each one, amid all the comic chaos, also reveals their own dignity, heart and humanity. That's true. It's not just Hester. There is legitimate humanity to each of these individuals. The show also manages to teeter between patriotism and subversiveness, admiring the derring do of the mission while poking at its shortcomings too, which is something I've never really considered. What an interesting inference. Having the actors play any gender of any character without camp or winx is a theatrical approach that not only cleverly skirts the sexist and classist ick of that era, but coolly comments on it too. Very much, very much. There's been talk about the show's sort of quietly queer identity, which is inclusive within that as well. A little bit of expanding on the performances here, calling Charles Cholmondeley, played by David Cumming, a hysterically loose limbed buggy and marvelously comic creation. Natasha Hodgson as Ewan Montague, played with captivating assurance and a sterling voice. Zoe Roberts as John Bevan, a no nonsense officer surrounded by absolute nonsense indeed, while Jack Malone as Hester Leggett and Claire Marie hall as Gene Leslie both bring a sweet wistfulness to the show with a song about those who might dream but are not destined to receive glory or even a thank you for your service. Nice to hear an acknowledgement of the second act number. Useful in there as well, but the show's emotional highlight, you'll hear this a lot is all Malone's as Hester composes a heartbreaking fake love letter that's not a love letter. And yet it so very much is legitimately one of the great show stopping moments of recent times. How could they not comment on it in all of these reviews? I'm willing to bet money will be talked about in every single one. The second act becomes almost too much of a good thing, overstuffed with strange but true subplots, incidental characters and plenty of switcheroos. But by the end it all comes together as it builds for its glitzy finale. Appropriately titled A Glitzy Finale. And after seeing the show as many times as I have and having so many conversations with people about it and talking about it on more than one occasion on here. If you want to know what I've thought of Operation Mincemeat in the past, you can go and see my previous reviews both for its off West End and West End productions. It's really nice to be hearing new takes on it and things that I had never previously considered. Enjoyed that. Frank Rizzo thank you. Who do we want to go to next? The reviews, I will tell you, are largely positive sites that compare and contrast them like did they like it called Operation mincemeat as receiving 13 positive reviews, two mixed reviews and it included the New York Times among those which I think may even have been mixed. Negative, honestly, and two out and out negative reviews. Let's see what David Gordon had to say in Theatremania. David Gordon, who, because of TheatreMania's relationship with their British counterpart Watson Stage, I dare say had seen Operation Mincemeat in London prior to it making its way to New York. After a few paragraphs of description, he says that it's a fascinating story and a piece of history that Americans aren't likely to encounter anywhere in their high school curriculum. I mean, British people don't either. This is not talked about in schools. This is the most unapologetically goofy thing since Spamalot, but it's also deeply profound and moving in its examination of the cost of war and the moral quandary of determining who lives are worth more men or women, soldiers or secretaries housed or homeless. Another very meaningful thing to take away from this that that is kind of the underlying message of the whole thing. But the assorted issues that I had with the show in London still stand. Interesting. There isn't a lot of melodic distinction between the songs, and as a result most of the big production numbers tend to blend together. Mike Walker's tinny sound design doesn't help. The fast moving lyrics are rendered almost completely unintelligible and the band feels like it's miles away. This is a big problem, I think, especially when you're doing comedy. When you're doing witty, fast paced British comedy to an American audience. I wish that a little more attention could have been paid to that sound design and to the show's orchestrations as well. And David Gordon still thinks that it needs to be shorter. Pushing 2 hours and 40 minutes, the show stretches past its welcome, especially in the second half, which plods along through story padding as the officers await word of whether their plan worked. And just when you're starting to think that this maybe is moving towards a mixed review rather than Positive, he says. But whereas I merely appreciated the show in the West End, I loved it on Broadway. There's not much discernible difference. Robert Hasty's irreverent staging here at the golden and there at the Fortune, besides a handful of upgrades to Ben Stones, deceptively versatile set. Indeed it is. And Mark Henderson's glitzy lighting. We love a critic who names each individual member of the creative team. That's something that I try to do as much as possible and I respect it. Knowing what was coming allowed me to better appreciate the dedication of the five actors to their craft. I've said it before, it is really beneficial as a critic to be able to see something at least twice because you get to experience it and its surprises and then the second time you get to see how the pieces all fit together because you know what the agenda is, you know what it's moving towards, you know what the intentions are. Gordon also talks about each member of the company. Natasha Hodgson as Montague, her voice growling with a Clint Eastwood purr and carrying herself with a swaggering self assurance that is enough to make all the straight ladies in the audience change their majors. To Ewan. That's a reference of course, to the musical Fun Home, and it's something I've heard a lot, a lot of women with confusing feelings about. Natasha Hodgson as Ewan Montague. And listen, I understand she and Cumming make for a delightful double act. The macho man who takes the uber nerd under his wing that allows his confidence to grow. Hall. That's Clanmory. Hall is terrific as Jean, the plucky woman from the typing pool determined to make her mark while Zoe Roberts kills it with one of the most surprisingly real figures from this espionage mission, Ian Fleming, an eccentric intelligence officer in a black tux who's writing a novel about a British secret agent with a penchant for martinis, shaken, not stirred. Of course. James Bond, with Ian Fleming having been a real life spy as well as a well known novelist. Interesting to pull out a character that Zoe plays much more briefly than either Johnny Bevan or Haselden, which are sort of the two main roles of hers. But here it comes. The show is undeniably stolen by Malone, whose array of roles includes the vampiric coroner supplying the officers with their body, and most notably, Hester, the fastidious head of the MI5 secretarial pool who crafts a fake love letter for the fictional soldier to carry. Also a mention of useful here. There you go. But then it's Malone's first act so solo, dear Bill, that lingers long after the curtain falls. One of the most poignant musical theatre ballads in recent memory, Malone delivers it as a masterclass in stillness and emotional acuity, hitting us like a ton of bricks. Here is where the Tony campaign begins. It's the kind of performance that wins awards, and it wouldn't surprise me if Malone collects a Tony come June to go with his Olivier if I'm a producer on this show, I'm getting a big poster of Jack Malone as Hester. I'm putting it outside the theater with a quote over the top that reads the kind of performance that wins awards. And then I will replace it mid June with Tony aw winning performer Jack Malone. Hopefully. Fingers crossed. David Gordon admits to having been among the cynics who didn't think that this little show that could was cut out for the spotlight on 45th Street. After seeing it again, I'll proudly admit that I was wrong. Operation Mincemeat is a highlight of the season. We love to see it, and I think we'll scan through at least one more positive review. Sarah Holdren in Vulture is always a great read with a title that says Dead Men Do Tell. Open parenthesis parentheses Funny, close parentheses tails. Operation Mincemeat. What's more pleasantly surprising than a self described big dumb musical? Did they say that? Who said that? About A particularly wacko tidbit of World War II history created by a scrappy British comedy troupe is now making its debut on Broadway after rocketing through the strata of UK theatre, selling out on the West End and taking home two Olivier Awards? Or that it's actually the third musical that we know of written about said historical escapade, along with a whole crop of books, TV episodes and films. I got criticized for this a lot in secondary school, but that is an incredibly long sentence, Sarah, and also an interesting framing to the beginning of this review because I I'm sure that they exist. I'm not doubting the research here, but they're certainly not well known. But if you're an American who doesn't necessarily trip over herself to watch Anything with Matthew McFadden, here's a primer. And then talking about the real life Operation Mincemeat in quite impressive detail, I will say, more so than in any of the other reviews that I've looked through thus far. That detail, though, Sarah writes, is less important to the multi talented dynamos of Spit Lip the writer performers of Operation Mincemeat. The vivaciously silly and quite charming music that's made landfall on Broadway. The jokes fly thick and fast, and they tend toward broad grin crackers rather than breathless zingers, but it overflows with good humor and heartfelt commitment. Director Robert Hasty and choreographer Jenny Arnold, possibly mentioned here for the first time, keep the quintet of actors in such constant motion, rife with genre winks and references that I was astonished not to see Ben Stone's crisp, transformable bass costumes of pinstripes, suspenders and ties soaked clean through by the finale. And listen, these performers have been doing this show a really long time, so I think they've just built up a stamina at this point. Almost all of them have been with the show since its beginning back in, I want to say, 2018, 2019, obviously with a bit of a gap in the middle there. Had a whole run in the West End, but have really been developing this for some time. While some moments certainly sizzle more than others, there's more than enough sincerity and goofy charisma on stage to keep the show powered. There's also a sound instinct by the writing team Spit Lips David Cumming, Felix Hagen, Natasha Hodgson and Zoe Roberts collaborated on book, music and lyrics, and all but Hargan appear on stage. Interestingly enough, it was a true collaboration collaborative writing process, but yes, a sound instinct by them about where to pull all the zany stops out and where to pepper in dashes of earnest reflection or ethical quandary without oozing into preachiness. I agree. I agree entirely. If there's a deeper conflict underlying the play's top layer of giddy spy thriller action, it has to do with the moral corners that are easily cut during war or simply in the pursuit of success and glory. And with the ever troublesome question of who does the work and who gets the credit. Gosh, I love the way that you write. Sarah Holmes cauldron Ewan Montague played with a plummy patriarchal growl and irrepressible BDE by Hodgson. That's a great description. That's my favourite is the swaggering, cavalier ends justify the means type. Nervous, bespectacled Chumley, meanwhile, probably couldn't swagger with a gun to his head. He's a scientist, a creepy crawlies enthusiast and an all around grade A nerd. Chatter about more of the performances. Chatter about more of the performances. I dare say that we are heading towards a Dear Bill, but before then a little bit of chatter about the writing. There's more than a touch of Gilbert and Sullivan there. Stick close to your desks and never go to sea and you all may be rulers of the Queen's Navy sung by the First Lord of the Admiralty and HMS Pinafore, providing Montague with clear ancestry for lines like well, let navy lads get soaking we'll all stay nice and dry we'll shout to all the soldiers Jump and hear them shout how high. The cheeky satire is where Operation Mincemeat really sparkles. I am not familiar with Gilbert and Sullivan to the same extent that Sarah Haldran isn't had not made that connection connection. Brilliant, brilliant work. And this is where I really enjoy theatre criticism is when people can pull things out like that. Where its gleam dulls a bit, is in the show's signs of a different, more American strain of heritage. The unmistakable cadences of Hamilton turn up in certain stretches of semi wrapped lyrics, particularly by the MI5 team's Christopher Jackson as Washington channeling boss Colonel Johnny Bevan. If you're wondering which section it is, it's when Zoe begins to sing Sicily will turn the tide of the war. But we can't just go and knock up on the door. Whatever the lyric is at that moment, that's where it starts to feel very Hamilton esque. And also in the arrangement I feel not only are the musicals dips into hip hop its most forced sections in terms of both aesthetics and performance, they're also just hard to hear. Unfortunate. Whether it's a matter of delivery or sound engineering, the fast flying lyrics get swallowed up and Mincemeat is a show where it's imperative to catch the words, isn't it just fortunately, here we go. The less engaging passages quickly roll onwards into more farcical fun and as in the case of Hester's song, Dear Bill into some truly poignant gentlemen. And then there's a whole section here talking about how we arrive at Dear Bill. Malone sings the whole song standing still, glasses just so, hands mostly together, a single curl placed neatly on his forehead. But the quiet anthem unfolds Hester's inner life, growing from a place of deliberate mundanity into a revelation of real love and loss. It's a highlight of the show as well as a lovely example of Mincemeat's subtle queering of a historical narrative. The only rules are Ewan Montague must be played by a woman and Hester Leggett must be played by a man. Reads the script's front matter. Further great research there by Sarah Holdren. It's not a matter of shoehorned commentary, simply of letting new bodies fill seemingly familiar spaces and seeing what resonates and I will never tire of hearing about people's individual responses to that Dear Bill moment. I think, as I mentioned before, it is so beautiful and people have different things to pull out about it. I would really love to read more pieces that go into depth on those lyrics because it floored me completely the first time that I heard it. I thought it was gorgeous. I thought it was so brilliantly clever and it took a lot of listens before I really truly appreciated the double meaning at Play with the Roses and everything that's happening there. I'm not going to spoil it for you, but sort of pull at that thread a little if you haven't considered it. It all culminates in the Roses don't get the conversation that they need. It's a throwback to an earlier sort of a little joke at the beginning, but it speaks to the whole thing in a brilliant way. Perhaps that occurred to you the very first time that you heard it and it just took me a little bit longer. And according to our friends at did they like it? There are further positive reviews from Tim Tieman at the Daily Beast, from Chris Jones for New York Daily News, from David Fingal for New York Stage Review, as well as Michael Summers for the same publication, it seems from Caroline Cowell for New York Theatre Guide, from David Coat in the observer, from Charles Ishwood in the Wall Street Journal. Oh, maybe we will read that one. As well as Shania Russell in Entertainment Week, Lee Brittany Samuel for Broadway News and Andrew Martini for Theatrely. Let's see what Mr. Isherwood has to say in the Wall Street Journal. Very quickly, the British production minds for antic musical comedy. The true story of an outlandish plan to trick the Nazis during World War II. Ah, now, interestingly, I think this is going to put the Dear Bill praise right at the start. It may be telling that the song receiving the most enthusiastic response in the daffy British musical that's fair enough. Operation Mincemeat is not one of the many comic romps that are the show's bread and butter. Or should I say tea and crumpets. Don't worry, we still. We still have. Instead, it's a tender ballad in which the schoolmistress secretary Hester Leggett, played by Jack Malone, sings an imagined love letter to be planted on a corpse to add verisimilitude. Great word, verisimilitude. I never have the chance to say verisimilitude in a review. Excellent work. To the dead man's manufactured life story. Intrigued yet performed by Mr. Malone with a touching sincerity untainted by sentimentality, the song hints at a lost love in Hester's past. I think it does more than that, but that reveals a beating heart just below the classic British stiff up, stiff upper lip. I can't even say it, so stiff are my upper lips, it seems. Yet it's not just the character, but the musical too, that in this moment takes a necessary breath, indicating a subtle emotional core beneath the sometimes exhaustingly antic comedy. As I said, praise to be expected both for Jack Malone's performance and for the inclusion of a moment like Dear Bill. It is this real turning of a corner in a show that has been so wildly unserious and zen up to that point, and Charles Isherwood evidently so struck by it that it's the first thing that he wants to talk about in that review. We won't spend any longer reading into that one because I dare say it's going to echo many of the same things that have been said in the others. But I want to convey to you a great many positive reviews. It is a largely positively reviewed show here, according to did they like it? Of the publications that they rounded up, this is 13 out of 17 positive reviews. We have already looked at the apparently mixed response from the New York Times. Let's go to the other one which was ranked similarly, which is from Adam Feldman in Timeout. Now Timeout, one of the few New York based publications that do give star ratings, it's out of five. When we get to the New York Post, that's going to be out of four. So all very confusing. Most of the Americans don't use stars at all. Timeout is out of five. The New York Post is out of five for no good reason whatsoever. But when Andre Lyckowski reviewed Operation Mincemeat in the West End for Time out, it was a four star review. Adam Feldman gives it three. A wacky British musical about a downed pilot doesn't quite land on Broadway. Was it worth it? For the pun? Adam, Was it worth it? Let's see what we think of this one. The scrappy British musical Operation Mincemeat, the comic tale of a military spy plot in World War II, has arrived to storm the shores of Broadway with plenty of backup. Critics in the UK have left loved it. It has been billed as the best reviewed show in West End history. Time Out London's own Andre Lycowski called it a glorious spoof and it won the 2024 Olivier Award for Best New Musical. Perhaps in riding this wave of praise to Broadway, the production has lost some of what made the operation itself an unlikely success in 1943, the element of surprise. And I have to disagree, that is a great turn of phrase and a brilliant introductory parody paragraph. But it doesn't really give the necessary credit to the West End production, which by the time it finally opened at the Fortune, had been seen by a lot of critics. It had already won the Evening Standard award for best new musical in competition with West End shows. When it was, I think that was for the run at the new Diorama. It was very early in its life that it won that big accolade. People absolutely saw this coming. And the whole reason it sold well in the West End is because it had this extraordinary word of mouth behind it. People knew about Mincemeat thoroughly. So before it got to the West End, and that includes critics. All of which is to say that the element of surprise was not essential to its positive West End reception. Drawing a little bit of comparison here with six, the musical devised by university chums that worked its way from the Edinburgh fringe to the West End, as well as Dead Outlaw, which will also open on Broadway this season, which also features a small cast playing multiple roles and centers on the unusual use of human course. Indeed, it is fascinating for the two of those to coincide. The cast of five, often playing against gender, includes three of Operation Mincemeat's writer composers as the scheme's primary architects. Two other actors join them as the story's main Jack Malone as Bevan's reserved assistant, Hester Leggett, and Claire Marie hall as her ambitious secretarial pool mate, Jean Leslie, a self described plucky young heroine type. Everyone is enjoying the use of the phrase secretarial pool in these reviews. I guess it's not something that we get to say often in one of the show's residual fringe elements. These actors also literally wear many different hats, courtesy of designer Ben Stones, who is also behind the deliberately makeshift set. Oh, I hate to fact check you again, Mr. Feldman, and this feels like bullying at this point, but I don't believe Ben Stones came on board as a designer until the production's West End run. I don't think, and I don't remember them having as many different hats as they did, literally speaking, what I saw it at Southwark Playhouse. They, they had trilbys and things, but I don't think they had the, like the, the admiral caps and the, the portraits that they put their heads through to play some other characters. But there's Also a truth in what he's saying here about it, having retained an identity that feels indicative of its fringe origins, which I think is very much in the DNA of the show at this point, which I think is important in keeping with the show's madcap trans historical style. Another good word. The songs are a motley assortment of pastiches from vaudeville to modern pop. They're pleasingly familiar. Ceylon Boys is a sea shanty with a whiff off the rose. Making a man is 1940s swing by way of the Cantina Band in Star wars and verbally clever in tossed off ways with a Tim Minchinish spat with a Tim Minchin ish. That's hard to say I'm sorry with a Tim Minchin ish spatter of near rhymes and expressly Hamiltonian passages of rap. Definitely deserving the the Hamilton comparisons there. That's the first time I've heard Tim Minchin referenced and I think there is definitely a lyrical similarity to the likes of Matilda for sure. A cast album has been recorded and Operation Mincemeat is enjoyable to listen to in that form. So why in person did Operation Mincemeat mostly leave me less amused than I'd hoped and even at times annoyed? And then something happens that you don't often see in a written review, which is a commentary on an included photograph. Take a look at this photograph, he writes, which accurately captures the tone of much of the production. And it's a shot of I'll include it here. Four of the show's five actors during a sequence in the second act holding telephones. He goes on to say, if this looks to you like actors having fun, there's a good chance you'll dig what Operation Mincemeat is grinding. To me, it looks like actors pushing too hard. They don't stop nudging you with their elbows. And while moments of that can tickle, I smiled more than once at Hodgson's bluff obliviousness. Two and a half hours of it gets a little exhaust. Exhausting. The show has been compared to Monty Python hasn't adjust, but it's sweatier than that. The brilliance of a Python sketch like the Ministry of Silly Walks is the absurdist normalcy that surrounds the central oddity here. The characters always seem to know they're walking silly. Interesting. It has also been compared to the Producers, since both contain irreverent musical portrayals of the Nazis. But the bad taste of the Springtime for Hitler sequence in that show was the comedy's target. Operation Mintz meets Nazi Bits, an electronic dance pop number called Das Ubermensch, a spinning swastika propeller, are simply bad taste coffee comedy itself. I okay, I I will give you that for Das Ubermensch. I think what's interesting and I haven't seen the Broadway changes the moment with the propeller at the end is directly making fun of American inclinations towards the far right and the resurge of fascism in the current American political landscape. They, in the West End production, sing the lyric make America great again. I wonder if it's been toned down and it doesn't qu quite come across now in the same way. I'd be very curious. This is a big part of why I do want to see the show on Broadway. Some of the things that bothered me about Operation Mincemeat are inherent to the material, such as the way it builds Jean's arc as a feminist parable, but actually gives her almost nothing to do but take notes. I mean. I mean, I think just being in the room and being allowed to be part of the conversation was the big deal of that moment. But I do see also how it comes across that way. And some things probably just don't land as well here as in London, such as the show's preoccupation with class. True, very true. Or its general tendency, true to many British musicals, to call attention to itself as a musical. Maybe after five years the actor's gameness has gone a bit gamey. Maybe two they have over enlarged their performances to fill the space, which is something that I commented on when Eddie Redmayne transferred to Broadway with Cabaret from the West End. What I do know is that the performer who comes across best is the one who seems the least force, Jack Malone, who not only provides the show's best mincing as a campy, fraudulent cocktail coroner bedecked in sequined blood, but also by far its meatiest dramatic moment, the Act 1 ballad Dear Bill. It's this musical's equivalent of 1776's Mama Look Sharp, a sincere respite from the busy bickering of people making the big decisions, sung from the perspective of the people whose lives are changed by them. An excellent summary. Very good, as Malone delivers it with beautiful directness in a wistful high tenor. The troubles of the real world take center stage and the troubles of the show melt away like Hester herself. It's the quietly beating heart of the whole operation. And with that sentence, the review ends very interesting. I don't entirely disagree with all of the things illustrated there by Adam Feldman. I would love to see him go back to the show on another night and see if he enjoys it a little bit more, because he seemed, as much as anything else, puzzled by his own indifference to it, given the strength, the admitted strength of its material. But then that's also comedy, and I can't begrudge some someone their response to something. And all of these opinions are still ultimately valid, and I'm not here to pick apart every single mixed or negative review of the show. That being said, we are going to read through the two overtly negative reviews, the first of which is coming from Johnny Oleksinski in the New York Post. He has confided in me previously about having seen the show in London and I I was aware of his feelings. I think he may even have nodded to it in previous writing that he's not a fan of Operation Mincemeat and he has never one to make his feelings anything less than clear. So with a four star system here in the New York Post, he has given it two out of four, which is still not absolutely terrible, but obviously not what they were hoping for. He writes like any Broadway show, the musical Operation Mincemeat sells merchandise and drinks at intermission. Might I also suggest Adderall? Oh Johnny, he calls it an often tiring wallop of frenetic hyperactivity. There's ample cleverness and some witty lines, but the Red Bull tweeness gets grating AD2 roles are played by a caffeinated cast of five young Brits. They shout jump, rave, wink, mug. Change outfits countless times and race through wordy lyrics like singing auctioneers. Men play women, women play men. The only thing they don't do is breathe. I found the story absorbing, the yucks abusive. The little known weird but true tale, which was recently made into a serious film of the same name starring Colin Firth, is itself appealingly warped. Such a premise wouldn't immediately scream musical, but here's a techno dance number called Das Ubermensch performed by dancing Nazis. And this chapter of history is anything but humorous. Yet now it's best known for being a comedy that ends with a megamix and confetti cannon. I mean, I think it might still be best known for the film Stop someone on the street and see if they've even heard of Operation Mincemeat and then try and figure out which one they're talking about. That's a fun game for you to play on on a street near you. Perhaps that's why Mincemeat has developed such a rabid fandom in the uk It's a scrappy work put on by a scrappy company with humble orig origins. Everybody loves an underdog. Indeed, it's true on Broadway. It's just one more strange little show among many this season. And that doesn't take away from it's still all those other things. It is still an underdog. It's just not the only one. This is the thing. And I did question whether it would be more beneficial for the show to build up more of a New York following by first running off Broadway and then transferring in. Ultimately, it finds itself alongside other little shows that could like maybe happy ending, like Dead Outlaw, other shows that originated in smaller theaters. Buena Vista Social Club having opened, I think on Broadway the night before or within the same week. At least some actual emotion Here we go. Is introduced by Malone's Hester. Even in the negative reviews, you're going to hear about Dear Bill, a secretary whose heart leaps out to the random dead body the team has procured, only to discard as a prop. Malone, the finest actor and singer in mincemeat, performs a moving and refreshingly serene if slightly overlong how dare you, Mr. Oleksinski. We're going to have words number called Dear Bill in which a teary Hester pens a letter pretending to be the cadavers worried for fiance back at home. The score has a few catchy melodies that are earworms because of the show's many reprises, a British tradition as cherished as afternoon tea or cycling through prime ministers. A criticism that I will give you both with Prime Ministers, for which I blame the recent Conservative Party and the nature of overused reprises, for which I blame Andrew Lloyd Webber, as I do for many things. And he does point out to his credit, the smart lyrics sometimes jumbled in the theatre, are easier to discern on the album. Oh, how I wish there could have been a little more clarity in the show's sound design. And Johnny for part wishes the production was more fulsome. The golden has 400 more seats than its West End home. The Fortune. Having seen the show in both cities, it's area here. Some scenes, especially dialogue dependent ones, get totally lost stateside when all the lights are up on two people chatting off to the side, the vibe is lunch break before moving to New York, and I mentioned this back at the beginning, the production conducted an online poll. Is Operation Mincemeat too British for Broadway? It's not, he says, but for some it will be too much. And in the spirit of fairness, we have one final review to read through before we conclude here. And this is from the Wrap, which I will tell you is another negative review of the production. Here it is. This is from Robert Hoffler, who writes nothing kills a laugh faster than seeing actors sweat. Which I don't agree with either. I think immediately. I mean, the Play that Goes Wrong is a terrific Everything that Mischief has done is a terrific example of this. The Producers for crying out loud. I've seen pictures and bootleg video footage of Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick in the Producers. They'd sweated for. Well, not for England, but you get the idea. He begins by saying Dead Outlaw. Now there's a musical that knows how to put a corpse on stage. The musical about the well traveled mummy of. Okay, we're still talking about Dead Outlaw for in fact a whole paragraph. Perhaps. Then it is the vaunted old Blighty reserve and good taste that fumbles Operation Mincemeat, the World War II story of how the Corpse of We know what the show is about. Too long, exhaustive and hopelessly cute production opened Thursday at the Golden Theatre after its ongoing run in London. Amidst its ongoing run in London, it hasn't closed in the musical version. The actual features of the Operation Mincemeat aren't made clear until halfway through Act 1. It's also that rare musical that doesn't have a love story. Big mistake. Ooh. However, there is a love song titled Dear Bill delivered by Jack Malone, who comes up with the fraudulent love letter from Gene to Bill that will be among the corpses possessions. Why the makers of this musical have not given Deer Bill to Gene to help spark a romance with either Chumley or Montague is anyone's guess. Either what? Because they're the two nearest men, so it doesn't matter which. But she should presumably start a romance with one of them because we need a love story. Otherwise we don't get what the hell is going on here. What? Okay, I I told you Dear Bill was going to get mentioned in all of these reviews. I didn't realize it would be so fundamentally misunderstood. That's mind blowing. Boggling. Zoe Roberts rounds out the cast of Five playing top brass Johnny Bevan. There is actually a romantic subplot, if you're willing to pay attention, between Mr. Bevan and Hester Leggett. It's very late in emerging, so I'm not willing to say that the show has a love story. I also don't think that it matters. I also don't know that it really is that rare a concept I think we've moved on a very long way since the days of Rogers and Hammerstein. Obviously there's a lot of cross dressing here and never has drag been used to less comic effect. Effect sort of deliberately only Coming, who is a singing, dancing, galumphing cartoon, possesses the unique features and delivery to make this kind of spoofery come alive. The other four would not qualify to audition to be oh Mary. Understudies Jack Malone would be terrific in O Mary. And if you can't see that, then you ought not to be a casting director, which is fine because you're not. You're a critic who evidently loves O Mary, a show which famously is very big on its love story question mark. I'm trying. I'm trying to be fair to this. I'm really trying. The antic anarchy of that Cola Scholar comedy, not to mention Dead Outlaw, which he already did, and Titania, which continues its riotous run off Broadway, is almost completely missing here. Antic anarchy. We don't have enough antic anarchy. Such inspired insanity makes a very brief appearance at the top of Act 2. I'm not crying because of this review. I'm having seasonal allergies. Don't worry about me. When the company sings Das Ubermensch, a Nazi hip hop song, and after the audience at the Golden Theatre dutifully applauds, Roberts asks, really? In other words, welcome to Elon Musk's America. The rinky dink tunes elevate the latest Ozempic commercial to something worthy of Sondheim. I find a bright spot. Are the often clever lyrics, not that you will be able to understand them at the Golden. I had to check them out on YouTube since the glaring sound design by Mike Walker made them nearly unintelligible, especially when delivered by the soprano voices. Robert Hasty provides the frenzied mincemeat direction. It forced someone behind me to whisper halfway through act one. This is exhausting. Nothing kills a laugh faster than seeing actors sweat. Which is the end of this review, which left an awful lot unsaid. I think about the show, but my feelings feelings about it are quite clear. And I apologize to American audiences if watching a show like Operation Mincemeat is too tiring and challenging a thing to have to go through. I obviously have an enormous amount of love for the show. I think it is brilliant. I think it is one of the best new musicals written in the last 10 years. And I think that there are legitimate criticisms that you can make of the thing and I understand it having a mixed reception. Stateside but I don't feel like a lot of those reviews illustrated any of the more authentic reasons for that for it to not connect with American audiences. That last one in particular, why is Dear Bill not sung by Jean? So that she can end up romantically linked to either Charles or Ewan? I mean, that's such a haphazard and thoughtless thing to say about a brilliantly constructed musical moment that indicates just just an absurd lack of awareness of its power. Power within the piece, I am very sorry to say. For the most part, however, I enjoyed reading most of those reviews. I found much to agree with in the rest of those reviews, and on balance, Operation Mincemeat does seem to have been received very well, and no one really came out without saying it was too British for Broadway. So that is not something that producers or investors needed to be afraid of. As always though, I am just as intrigued to hear what all of you thought. If you have already seen Operation Mincemeat on Broadway, particularly if you are an American audience member, let us all know what you thought of it in the comments section down below. And if you want to know what I thought about the show, you can go and check out my pre existing reviews of Operation Mincemeat, both pre West End as well as in the west end, here on YouTube or on podcast platforms. Wherever you are seeing my face or hearing my voice. But also make sure that you are subscribed and or following me in case I do manage to see the show when I head to New York this spring. In the meantime, thank you so much for listening to this review roundup. I think that was really interesting. If you want me to do something similar for any other show shows opening this season either on Broadway or here in the West End, then let me know in the comments. In the meantime, thank you for listening and I hope that everyone is staying safe and that you have a stagey day. For 10 more seconds, I'm Mickey Jo Theatre. Oh my God. Hey, thanks for watching. Have a Stagey Day. Subscribe.