Operation Mincemeat is a true, yet utterly unbelievable plan, which was staged in July 1943 to hoodwink Hitler into believing that the Allied Forces, some 160,000 of which were massing in North Africa, were going to invade Nazi dominated Europe not through Sicily, but via Greece.
Churchill at the time said: “Anybody but a bloody fool would know it was Sicily.” So how did they do it?
How did the British intelligence manage to dupe the Nazis, save tens upon tens of thousands of lives and turn the tide of the war away from the Fuhrer and his pal Mussolini, giving the Allied Forces their first real hope of winning World War Two?
I will restrain myself from giving you a history lesson. But shortly after war ended the story of Operation Mincemeat quickly became the stuff of numerous books, myth, legend and a Hollywood Movie ‘The Man Who Never Was’.
Yet the real extend of this extraordinary deception by Mi5 only really came to light with the release of classified files a decade or so ago, when the true identity of the ‘man who never was’ was uncovered as that of Glyndwr Michael. A 34-year-old Welsh tramp who killed himself by swallowing rat poison.
This tragic figure that grew up in a mining village that run out of coal saw his own father slit his throat, when Glyndwr was just fifteen. His mother died in 1940 and by January 1943 this barely literate, homeless, penniless and friendless man’s corpse was found in a disused warehouse near London’s King’s Cross.
Oh! I hear you cry, this is hardly the stuff of comedy, musical theatre and farce. But, it was the body of this man, stored in the vaults of the wonderfully Dickensian named mortician Sir Bentley Purchase that was used as bait to lure Hitler in.
He was dressed up as a Major in the Royal Marines, an officer and a gentleman; the type of chap who could be entrusted with top-secret documents in a briefcase, handcuffed to him. Now Major William Martin, his body was dropped and then fished out off the coast of neutral yet Fascist-run Spain, which was awash with Nazi spies.
This elaborate military hoax, second only in history perhaps to the Trojan Horse, was the brainchild of Ian Fleming – the writer of James Bond. But the men to carry out the actual operation were Charles Cholmondeley, a RAF pilot that did not fly and Ewan Montagu, a Royal Naval commander that did not go to sea. And so let the madcap plan commence on the stage of Southwark Playhouse, complete with a live band.
Cholmondeley, who in real-life compared himself to a looking like ‘toothpaste squeezed out of the tube’ had a peculiar mind. In his spare time he studied the mating habits of insects and hunted partridge with a revolver, David Cumming’s portrayal is nutty enough to pull it off. But some kudos has to be given to the switching of gender performance of Natasha Hodgson as Montag, whose swagger, comedy timing and ability to exude the type of fellow who was ‘born to led’, the very epitome of the male British establishment of that era is faultless. Monatgu, a barrister before the war, was said to have had the ability to see inside the human mind and exploit its weaknesses. Hodgson does this brilliantly to Cumming throughout the entire one hour 50 minutes of the play.
Fast paced but devised with exceptional timing, line after line hits the right note in word, song, rhyme and even in a display of hip hop, as rapid as anything you see on the stage of Hamilton.
SpitLip, the musical theatre company behind the show, have taken this serious, although, in real-life often amusing historic tale and brought it to the small stage of Southwark Playhouse with fun and buffoonery that does not drag nor irritate. It is genius.
Special mention needs to go to Jak Malone, who played among other roles Hester Leggett, the head secretary of Mi5. The entire cast of five show real commitment to the multiple parts they play, but Malone’s portrayal of Hester is best shown off when she is tasked with writing letters to Major Martin as his fictitious girlfriend Pam. Presented as a ballad Malone’s moving words tiptoed upon me amid the otherwise high jinks performance and had me wiping away a tear or two. Hester Leggett is stern, elderly and unmarried, but it is clear that through the letters she is reliving a past romance from the First World War that was as domed as our made-up hero Major Martin.
When I went to see the show it was billed as a work in progress, but it had been put on before and revised. In its previous incarnations it won off West End awards, The Stage Debut for Best Composer/Lyricist and received glowing reviews. I can only say that this is not a work in progress, it was a razor-sharp performance and a sure-winning hit that should grace the West End stage.
It was a relief to see something this good after so long an absence of live theatre. Having been a week or so before to Southwark Playhouse to see Staircase, which I found hugely disappointing, this Elephant & Castle venue is now back on my top list.
With more offerings like this – the only work in progress will be the work still taking place across the roundabout for them in the shinning new Uncle Building, where the playhouse is due to move to at the start of next year.
Running until September 18, start time is 7.30pm, 3pm matinee, £27.50/ £22 concessions