OPERATION MINCEMEAT is the 1943 code name for a preposterous and brilliantly successful World War II espionage hoax which saved millions of lives. The mission was to hoodwink Nazi Germany’s Military Intelligence into believing that the allies planned to invade Greece and Sardinia and not Scilly. It was achieved by dressing up the corpse of a tramp in the uniform of an officer in the Royal Marines and dumping him and his briefcase full of faked secret documents, in the sea off Spain.
I have not been to the Fortune Theatre in 34 years since the premiere of the long-running Woman in Black which might still be running, were it not for Covid.
I decided to do some homework before going to the show and watched two films: the recently released Operation Mincemeat directed by John Madden and starring Colin Firth and the 1956 movie, The Man Who Never Was, directed by Ronald Neame and starring Clifton Webb, which was infinitely superior and far more exciting and entertaining.
It is easy to imagine a revue sketch sending-up stiff-upper-lip British War films. It’s much harder to imagine the military deception as a full-scale musical. But that is what the young theatrical company SplitLip has done. Their anarchic, gender-swapping version finally arrives in the West End after five years of try-outs on the fringe.
The book, the music and the lyrics are by three members of the cast, David Cumming, Felix Hagan, Natasha Hodgson and co-artistic director of SplitLip, Zoe Roberts. Cumming is loud and physically funny.
Robert Hastie directs an efficient and fast production, amazing in its quick changes of clothing accessories and props. The frenetic slapstick has an undergraduate zeal and energy; but it is not always easy to hear the lyrics. A high spot, and surprisingly serious, is a letter written by a World War I widow to her fiancé before he was killed in Germany. The letter is movingly sung by Jak Malone, who gives a matronly camp performance at other times.
The theatre was packed. The show, massively over-rated, has a cult following and the young fans were an enthusiastic force. I felt I was out on a limb, seemingly the only one, who was disappointed with what he was seeing, until I checked with the person sitting next to me.
For those of you, who are interested in the real war story rather than a spoof, there is an Operation Mincemeat documentary directed by Russell England on YouTube.
To learn more about Robert Tanitch and his reviews, click here to go to his website. 
