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So I'm about to say something I have never said before, but which butchers in the olden times presumably said often. Let's talk about mincemeat and how well it travels. Oh my God. Hey. Welcome back to my theatre themed YouTube channel or hello to those of you listening to this review on podcast platforms. My name is Mickey Jo and I am obsessed with all things theatre. I am a theatre critic and a content creator here on social media and this very evening I, clad in these yellow palazzo pants, just about making it into the frame, headed to Woking Theatre in order to finally catch the touring production of Operation Mincemeat, the Olivier Award winning and Tony nominated little musical that could, which by this point in its lifetime is hardly a little show that could anymore. At this point it is now a little show that can and seems as though it will for a long time. And right off the bat I have to say, if you are local to Woking Theatre, go and check out Operation Mincemeat during this week run. But also if it's heading to a theatre near you, go and check out this show. It is utterly unlike anything else on the touring circuit and the fact that it's visiting theatres regionally around the UK is something we ought not take for granted. I don't know when it will happen next, and it's not necessarily something I assumed would happen whatsoever. You know, when I first saw Operation Mincemeat back in either late 2019 or very early 2020 pre shutdown, it was a prior production of the show which even then shone with utter ingenious brilliance. And much as I was willing the show to make its way to a West End theater, which it ultimately did, I didn't know whether commercial success for the show would be guaranteed. I was confident that its artistic reception would be a positive one, as it has been many 5 star reviews. I didn't think it necessarily a foregone conclusion though that the show would make its way to Broadway, it continues to play at the Golden Theatre, nor that they would be able to put out a UK tour running concurrently alongside the West End production. So to my mind this is a really big deal and a very exciting thing that is happening for regional audiences and at this point in its lifetime. Yet another review of the remarkable Operation Mincemeat, especially from me, who has given the show multiple five star reviews in the past, may seem redundant. However, the intrigue is when the UK tour opened earlier this year at the Lowry in Salford, the stage news paper which had given it multiple five star reviews throughout its development gave it a three star review per a different critic, raising the question is a five star musical still a five star musical on tour and how much has changed by a shift in casting? That is one of the things we are going to focus on today as I tell you what I thought of Operation Mincemeat on tour. If you have had the chance to see this show on tour around the uk, let me know what you thought in the comments section down below. And if you enjoy listening to this review and would like to hear more, perhaps you'd like to hear my previous reviews of Operation Mincemeat during its earlier life. You can find those wherever you are seeing my face or hearing my voice. You can also subscribe here on YouTube, turn on notifications so YouTube lets you know every time I share a new video, review or otherwise. Or you can follow me on podcast platforms or sign up to my weekly substack There are so many ways to keep up with all of the theatre that I'm seeing and all of the things that I'm saying about it. But for now let's talk about Mincemeat. So I want to tell the story a little bit of how Operation Mincemeat has made it thus far and it's one of a handful of musicals to have been written by a collective, a theatre company called Spit Lip, with three of its writers having been a part of the very original five person company, the majority of whom went on to become the original West End and Broadway cast. They are David Cumming, Zoe Roberts and Natasha Hodgson, in addition to Felix Hargan. That original cast was completed by Olivier Antonio Award winner Jack Malone and Claire Marie hall, and there was some question mark around the ability to recast Mincemeat and maintain its brilliance because that group group had been with the show for such a long time. For the most part it had been developed exclusively with those performers and so it's certainly a hurdle that they had to leap over both in the West End and more recently on Broadway. This right now in the world is a big time of recasting for Mincemeat. They have yet another new West End cast recently arrived at the Fortune Theatre in London. An all American cast has recently taken over at the Golden Theatre on Broadway and a third cast is touring the show around the uk, though many of these company members have a fairly long history with the show, with many of them having been the original standbys and understudies during the early days of the West End run. However, Mincemeat had already won a huge number of fans and a great deal of acclaim and even some awards. Prior to arriving in the West End, they had blazed a very deliberately slow and steady trail towards that goal, having played a handful of off West End theatres, including multiple runs at Southwark Playhouse, an initial world premiere run at the New Diorama Theatre, a run at Riverside Studios before the final version of the show eventually arrived, by which point it had gained some additional key creatives, including director Robert Hasty and designer Ben Stones. And from what I can remember of my earliest visits to Mincemeat pre its West End commercial glow up if you like. I can tell you that the work that Robert Hasty seems to have done as a director in joining this already very well paced and very funny show was mostly to streamline the emotional and dramatic storytelling, offer characters these very meaningful, layered and conclusive through lines and just generally provide a sort of a tightening while uplifting the the real heartfelt value of the material and at all times cherishing its utterly madcap identity. Ben Stones, meanwhile, as the set and costume designer, did perhaps the more noticeable work in upgrading the aesthetic of the entire thing. The first time I saw it, they were all wearing suits and there were a handful of old fashioned telephones along the back wall and basically nothing else. They had different hats that they would put on. There were a couple of costume changes, the occasional door frame would get wheeled in from the side of the stage, but they were playing these very small basically fringe venues. By the time the show ARR. At the Fortune Theatre and then at the Golden Theatre on Broadway, where there would be a little bit of a set upgrade once more, Ben Stones had created for them not only a really brilliant playground of a playing space, but also an actual glitzy finale worthy of the name. And for what it's worth, it is that version of the finale as well as that version of the entire show, the one that was adjusted for Broadway that is now touring around the uk, it is the most updated version of Operation Mincemeat. And if anyone's curious, the changes made to the show when it first crossed the Atlantic and headed to New York were so slight that I can scarcely recall them now, especially since I've seen multiple iterations of this material, I think there are a couple of cultural line changes where on Broadway they may refer to something as the Government rather than just saying Downing street because it would be more inherently understood. Here there was a line this evening, and I couldn't remember whether or not this had been added in, where the character of Johnny Bevan while punishing you. And Montague mentions not only the thousands of British troops whose lives may be at stake, but also all of the Allied troops and says Americans, Canadians, all of these soldiers and I wonder whether that was an addition for the us. It's occurring to me also for anyone who may have stumbled across this review and doesn't know the plot of Operation Mincemeat, that I haven't actually told you really anything about the identity or the narrative of the show and I will get to it, I promise. But since we're already talking about the creatives, I want to talk about Ben Stone's brilliant costume design because on the face of it it looks like five fairly similar business suits with various different accessor and a gloriously bedazzled black coroner's uniform, as well as quite literally so many different hats. But there are subtleties within the design for each of these characters. Something that Operation Mincemeat does better than almost any other show is to subvert your expectations of gender and really defy your perceptions thereof when it comes to these characters. Because we have male identifying and presenting performers playing female roles and vice versa, which makes it a really the accessible show from a casting perspective for non binary performers as well. And there's really only one moment of the show during which this is played for laughs for the remainder of the thing. It's a legitimately sincere portrayal of all of these characters on their own terms. And so for Christian Andrews in the touring production playing the role of Hester Leggett and others, it's a slightly higher waisted trouser and the shirt is tailored a little differently. There's a distinction between Holly Sumpton as Ewan Montague, a male character, and Sean Carey as Charles Chumley that betrays they're sort of a difference in confidence, if not necessarily in class, with Montague wearing a very well tailored pinstripe suit and Charles wearing a mismatched sort of tweedier jacket with elbow patches. Montague, to the surprise of absolutely no one, also has far shinier shoes. Charlotte Hannah Williams, meanwhile, is Gene Leslie and others also wearing a shirt and trousers, but needing to evoke a greater, more obvious sense of femininity playing a character who's a role whose identity as a woman surrounded by all of men in a professional environment is very important to her plotline. She has a sort of a puffier sleeve, a more billowing blouse. It's very subtle, but it's very clever the way in which we are empowered as an audience to be able to look at each of these and just trust in the characters who they are bringing to the stage, a huge part of which is the meaningful performances of this cast, which we will get to a little bit later on. For now, I think it is high time, overdue even, that I tell you a little bit more about what Operation Mincemeat actually is. What is the show behind this bizarre title? Now, there's a possibility that you may already be familiar with this plot because of the film of the same name, which depicts the same historical events, or because of your knowledge of those historical events themselves, because Operation Mincemeat tells the true story of a military deception strategy created by MI5 during the second World War, during which the British planned to mislead the Germans and have them redirect their troops from Sicily to Sardinia in anticipation of an Allied invasion of Sardinia, when in reality, the Allied forces were planning on arriving in Sicily all along, making for a much easier occupation and a reduction in casualties on both sides. And historically, one of the ways in which this was actually achieved was via the unbelievably true Operation Mincemeat, so named because it required a corpse. One who would be attired as a British pilot who had crashed off the coast of neutral Spain, who would be jettisoned from a British submarine and abandoned there with a briefcase tied to his wrist, have been provided with a robust backstory and identity and a paper trail that was inherently believable. And within the briefcase would have been details of the alleged Allied invasion of Sardinia, such that the Germans would procure this, read those, and believe that they had stumbled upon enemy plans, when in reality, the whole thing was an elaborate misdirection. And that is the story being portrayed in Operation Mincemeat. We meet a cast of characters, including Charles Cholmondeley, the somewhat anxious and eccentric amateur entomologist who came up with the plan but doesn't feel confident enough to pitch it to his superiors. He is somewhat reluctantly convinced into joining forces with the effervescently charismatic Ewan Montague, the quintessential British public schoolboy, who, amidst this defining chapter of 20th century European history, is chasing glory and recognition. And what Montague may lack in discipline, he certainly makes up for in confidence, so he can pitch Operation Mincemeat to their boss, Johnny Bevis. They are also aided in this endeavor by Jean Leslie, a young woman who has recently been recruited to MI5 and is dissatisfied with the allocation of jobs thus far, amounting to making the tea for all of these important men, and who, longs to do something that will allow her to feel useful, truly useful, in the war effort. She is instructed by Hester Leggett, a more senior administrative assistant working in the War Office, whose experience and hesitation and serious demeanor can be attributed to her having lived through multiple world wars, which we find out a little more about during the course of the show. Worth pointing out, I have told you about five characters played by five actors. Each of these within the company plays a handful of additional characters. There are dozens upon dozens depicted within the show at a fairly remarkable pace. I've also outlined an admittedly unorthodox but true enough wartime plot. And the thing you need to know about Mincemeat is that it is a zany comedy that manages to straddle utter silliness and surprising emotional sincerity at the same time typified by an opening number featuring all of these MI5 agents who are all the alumni of celebrated English private schools, talking, or should I say singing, about the utter confidence they have in their ability to win the war through their sheer genius and brilliance. My favorite lyric from which is fortune favors bravery and a fortune's what I've got, contrasted by a number that takes place later in the first act called Dear Bill, and this moment manages to stop the show. It's a moment when Hester Leggett takes both her peers in this particular mission and the audience by surprise when she volunteers to help write a believable love letter from a sweetheart back home to a soldier serving in the war. And as she continues to dictate this letter with a surprising readiness of detail, it becomes clear that she's talking about a different man entirely, not the hypothetical soldier whose wallet they are trying to furnish with realistic detail, but in fact a young man whom she was in love with during the First World War, the Great War, who evidently was lost. And it's a beautiful moment for the change of pace that it offers as she repeatedly sings, why did we meet in the middle of a war? What a silly thing for anyone to do, which is the most beautifully British sort of hugely emotional concept, but wrapped up in a little ribbon of emotional reluctance. And I've spoken about this moment in many previous reviews, but it's been a while since I've talked about Mincemeat on here, and if it's possible I haven't shared this realization before. I was listening to this while walking back from the gym once, and it suddenly occurred to me that I'd been taking the song at face value entire time because I've been so Bowled over by it emotionally. The first time I heard this and I didn't know what was coming. It was just this extraordinary experience performed by Jack Malone. The song continues to work regardless of which brilliant performer is singing it. And I had inferred, you know, the shift from Hester speaking hypothetically to then the moment when the name changes for the first time and she stops singing about Bill and she starts singing about Tom. And you see, it's this wonderful moment. You see the recognition shared between Charles and Jean, who are watching on with sorrow. What it took me the longest time to figure out, to my absolute shame, is that all of the lines about the roses, and they are to be taken literally, but they're also offering a metaphorical meaning at the same time, because she's singing about taking care of the roses for Tom, who is absent, who evidently was a keen gardener and who used to speak to the flowers to make her laugh. And it's this whole thing, and she sings about it, but once again in true British sorrow at an arm's length fashion. The roses are also a metaphor for the various women of England in Tom's family, but also all of the women left behind by these soldiers. And she sings while you're off gallivanting and I know you're not gallivanting, it's just hard for you to be right while I have to have both sides of this fight. But it's good to hear you, even just in my head. She goes on to sing while you're far from me. Our roses don't get the conversation they need, making it very clear. How did I not get this the first few times I listened to the song? That she's not really talking about flowers, even though she is. She's talking about the women, the roses who don't get the conversation they need, and the roses who just miss you. That is her, his sister, his mother. And throughout the lyrics of Dear Bill, it's only the women that she sings about, because, of course, it's all of these women who were left behind. The men weren't there anyway. That is yet another lap of me talking about the brilliance that is Dear Bill. This entire show is so ingeniously written. It's this really unique thing. But if I were to try and identify its influences, I would say there is perhaps a little Monty Python in there also. I've described it before as a British star, kid. I can't believe I've gone this far without likening it to Blackadder. Not just the Final Season, which is also set during the war, but also the earlier seasons of Blackadder. Some of the Blackadder Baldrick dynamics, some of the circumstances that they find themselves in and the schemes that they hatch, feel very Operation Mincemeat adjacent. And in terms of its musical theater influences, we have to talk about Hamilton. Now. This has been one of the bigger criticisms of Operation Mincemeat in the past, is that there are moments, moments where it feels like it's almost regurgitating Hamilton, and there is a rap section performed by Johnny Bevan which feels derivative even. And I think if we are to take a moment to acknowledge how truly groundbreaking Hamilton was, we have to acknowledge the other shows that came almost immediately afterwards in its wake, which also utilized similar stylistic techniques. If Hamilton was among the first shows, not the very first necessarily, but among the first shows to incorporate hip hop into musical theater storytelling, it isn't necessarily surprising that a lot of shows that came afterwards, not just Operation Mincemeat, but also six the Musical and some of its structural storytelling suffs as another one in terms of its overall identity. If Hamilton opened the door to these possibilities, it ought not to surprise us that the first adopters of those ideas would tend to look or sound an awful lot like it. And it's a brief enough moment in Operation Mincemeat, which for the remainder of the show feels nothing like Hamilton that, you know, I can appreciate it more as a tribute and acknowledgement rather than a place of plagiarism. While we're on the subject of slight criticisms of this absolutely brilliant work, there is enduringly some challenge with the show's sound design and its ability to convey all of its wit to an audience. And part of this is playing in larger spaces than those in which it originated. And it doesn't find quite as many laughs in the early moments because we have introductory songs before we get these extended, very funny moments of dialogue. And it's hard to pick up up all of the wit, all of the humor in these very fast paced lyrics, especially when you have a challenging sound design. This has kind of plagued the production on Broadway, and while it's touring around the uk, especially on the first performance of each tour stop, it's going to also be navigating a sound design in a completely different space in a completely different auditorium, which is what I happened to see this evening. And for what it's worth, I thought tonight's sound design was still better than the one that I experienced from the orchestra on Broadway, which is why. But you begin to understand why the laughs get more cumulative throughout the show, why they may be a little slower to start, and why people start to buy more into the hilarity of these characters once they have properly been able to get to know them. In this introductory moment, we're not actually meeting our sort of principal protagonists other than Charles and Montague. Meanwhile, my biggest complaint with Operation Mincemeat continues to be its orchestration and the size of the band. I'm not going to call them an orchestra, because they aren't. It is a small offstage band. And for whatever reason, while every other aspect of the show has been heightened and enlarged and upgraded as they have gone from Southwark Playhouse, Riverside Studios to the West End to Broadway international tour, the orchestration continues to make the thing sound like a video game that you're playing in the late 1990s. And Steve Sidwell is credited with the orchestration and vocal arrangements. I like the references to Bond and those themes that have crept into the show's moments of exposition. I just to want wish the sound of the whole thing were a little fuller. I think we got to hear a really glorious version at the Olivier Awards when they were performing with the BBC Concert Orchestra. I don't need that kind of a scale, but I need it to be a bigger band than what it is. I don't know why it has to be restricted to this, other than, you know, trying to continue to run a very visibly profitable show for as little money as possible and allow it to be a huge success. And it seems to be a huge success and I'm thrilled for sponsoring bit lip and all involved. It is a genuine delight to me that they have found a way to make the show ongoingly successful at the Fortune Theatre in London, even if I think they have been pricing it a little bafflingly. But when the time comes to move it to Broadway to travel around the country, I think you could add a little bit to that orchestration. That's all I'm saying. Finally, though, I have told you enough about Operation Mincemeat as a show that you can encounter anywhere. Let me tell you about the specific detail about the touring production, which is this cast. So, like I said, the version of the show being seen on tour around the UK is the most updated version of the script per the Broadway production. It is also, and this is really something, a replica of the West End set design. For the most part, when a show tours from the West End. You can see a couple of examples of this right now. In other productions, you don't get the same extent of set design. So kudos to Ben Stones and Rob Hasty and everyone involved for designing a production that would be able to tour in parallel and give those audiences exactly the same experience, with the major difference being the cast. However, this is not a company who are completely new to these characters. The majority of this touring cast have been with the show for a long time. I mentioned that a couple of them had been the understudies who were recruited when the show first moved to the Fortune in the West End. Sean Carey, who is playing Charles Cholmondeley and others, has actually been with the show even longer than that because David Cumming became indisposed during one of the pre war West End runs at Riverside Studios. That's when I saw Sean play the role of Charles for the first time and it became clear to me that he was, while gelling with the rest of that original company, making very different choices, which I thought was fantastic. I think that is really the future of musical theater productions that are fluid and flexible enough to allow replacement cast members and understudies and any additions to the company to make their own choices in these roles. That is kind of the new ethos that is emerging. Six is doing it. Hadestown's doing it. And I noticed it initially in something as small as this recurrent joke that Charles has when he's asked a question and it's a yes or no question, and he replies by saying, does a newt have an anus or something to that effect. And he will then provide the answer for the gobsmacked onlookers who don't know the answer to that question. And he will say something like, yes, yes, it does. And David did it with frustration of like, yes, yes, it does. How do you not know this? And Shaun does it with a sort of a strange confidence which is very endearing from this utterly awkward, clumsy character when he would go, yes, yes, it does. It's just a great difference that allows you to laugh at the line in a new way, especially if you are a fan of the show who has seen it in multiple places. His physicality is also very different to David's. David has this extraordinarily expressive face and these eyes that can basically pop out of his head like a cartoon. And Sha is doing something the littlest bit more grounded in humanity, especially during one of the shows show's few legitimate solo songs towards the beginning, when he's singing about how he wished he could evolve and be a better version of himself, just like a maggot or any kind of Other insect that he name checks in this song. And there is perhaps a degree more sincerity to the way he performs it. It can't be too heartfelt because it's going to step on the toes of the surprise of dear Bill that's coming later. Generally speaking, I think each of these cast members is doing something very interesting. Interesting in finding their own take on the role and pushing it out in a slightly new direction. I would love for them to make even bolder and even more disparate choices because there are so many different ways to make these characters and make this material funny. And I'm sure it's hard to truly abandon the ghosts of their predecessors. I know it's hard for me to stop hearing the way that these lines were read originally. And I think the easiest way to escape that is to do something completely fresh, completely new, which Holly Sumpton is doing very much as Ewan Montague figure. It's a completely different voice to the very sort of hoarse and gravelly one that Natasha did in channeling obnoxious public schoolboy entitled male. Holly is doing, interestingly, a regional accent. I believe it's a Yorkshire accent. I can only assume it's some version of her own accent that she is using with Ewan Montague. There is a softness, but it's still very funny. There is on occasion a line or a response which I feel could be delivered with just slightly more pace. And I feel we could turn the dial on Montague you up just the littlest bit so that he is similarly over the top and eccentric. Alongside these other personalities. Hannah Williams as Jean Leslie and others is another one who has been part of the company at the Fortune Theatre. Prior to this, I have basically only ever seen Claire Marie hall play Jean in various different theatres, other than once when I saw Holly Sumpton play the role, interestingly enough, and her Montague is completely different to her Jean. Charlotte's performance is very familiar of the characterization that Claire to developed in terms of its eagerness and how feisty and headstrong she is. There are a couple of moments where I think she could have even more conviction. There is a line when she's on the phone to a character called Haselden, who is their man in Huelva, their contact in Spain, who is bafflingly sweaty and very confused about what his ever changing instructions actually are re the recovery of the briefcase. And as she is issuing him these urgent instructions over the phone, the line is characterized with a line more concern and panic. It's sort of the action movie like what do we do? Kind of a thing from poorly written heroines rather than what it really needs to be in this moment, which is a stepping up to the plate and getting stuff done while Charles is panicking and Montague is trying to reassure him while not paying attention to the actual stakes of the situation. Now Haselden, as well as Johnny Bevan and other characters, is played by Jamie Rose Monk, who I gather is utterly new to the Mincemeat family, but steps into the roles brilliantly well. Those two in particular are completely different characters. One finds himself caught in the middle of this convoluted comedy scene, the other delivers a lot of stern rap. All of it very well done. Christian Andrews, who I have seen in this role before, does beautiful work as Hester Leggett and others, once again earning the night's biggest applause for a soft, simple, sweet and stirring rendition of Dear Bill. When that song is sung right, you don't need to embellish it whatsoever. All you need do is stand there and just very precisely melt your way through it. I also once again grew very fond of the relationship between Hester and Jean that has developed over the show when they sing useful in the second act. This used to not be one of my favourite songs, but I really enjoy the moment now. I like the way that it closes the chapter on Dear Bill and the two of them really come together in this moment of wartime female solidarity. And so as an overview, it's a great cast. They work really well together as a tight ensemble. I would love to see more casts of Mincemeat. I would be so intrigued to see the new American cast on Broadway. The new cast in the West End has some brilliant talents who I'm very excited to hopefully see at some point. I think especially for a show like this, it's always going to be better to rehearse in a new company at the same time rather than making slight additions. I'm also very intrigued about some of the performances of the understudies who are touring with this production. There are some brilliant talents who you would be very lucky to see if they get to go on for any of these roles. I will say it's something of a double edged sword that Minceme has so high honed the quality of these characters because they end up in slightly pigeonholed lanes where they find it difficult to then cast them subsequently with any kind of breadth. And what that ends up meaning is that we have sort of racially coded characters or characters that are either plus size or not. When this is not the kind of a show where that ought to matter. We're already transcending gender roles to such an extent. I don't know why we ought to limit the size of performers bodies on stage. I don't know why there ought to be so little racial diversity and why the makeup of the cast will, across so many different productions tend to look startlingly similar. This has begun to change on a broad level across these productions, but I would like to see it change a little bit faster. That being said, it's a fantastic show that you would be very lucky to get the chance to see anywhere in the world. So those have been my thoughts about Operation Mincemeat on tour and I was thrilled to see the theatre really full this evening. Like I said, if you are local to the Woking Theatre, go and check it out this very week, but also look up those tour dates, see if it is playing at a theatre near you. And I'm very happy that all of my fears about the commercial viability of Operation Mincemeat around the United Kingdom and around the world even have been assuaged at this point. And I think, you know, you've got to acknowledge the breadth of its demographic, that you're going to have older audience members who because of this period of history, are going to be intrigued by the but you're also going to have younger audience members who, because of the tone of its comedy, are going to really enjoy the thing as well. This is one of very few shows where I think so many people went to see it during its early days and just wholeheartedly recommended it with very little qualification. Come From Away is another where you just go and see this, you know it's special and you say, you know, all my friends, all my family, you just have to go and see this. You simply have to trust me. Those are the words with which people recommend Operation Mincemeat. Hopefully, hopefully this review has offered a few more and hopefully you enjoyed listening. Thank you so much for listening to my thoughts about Operation Mincemeat on tour in the uk. If you have seen this production already on any of its previous tour stops, let me know what you thought of it in the comments section down below. And if you would like to hear more of my reviews, you can find so many of them here online. You can also subscribe for many more coming soon. Thank you so much. I have been Mickey Jo and as always I hope that everyone is staying safe and that you have a stay stagey day
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for ten more seconds. I'm Mickey Jo Theater. Oh, my God. Hey, thanks for watching. Have a stagey day. Subscribe.