The greatest phenomenon in the theatre world in recent times has been the shooting star success of Operation Mincemeat, a musical, perhaps, with the most unlikely topic, that is wrapped up in an evening’s worth of silliness and fun, writes Michael Holland.
Operation Mincemeat, written and composed by David Cumming, Felix Hagan, Natasha Hodgson and Zoë Roberts, who form SpitLip, first saw their show in a short run at the New Diorama Theatre in 2019. Southwark Playhouse then took the baton and ran with it between lockdowns in 2020, 2021 and 2022 before the show enjoyed an extended run at Riverside Studios. Their award-winning production is now gearing up for its first West End run.
I got to talk to SpitLip (named after accidentally spitting over each other when performing), who also star in their show, to find out how this out-of-control success has affected them. I am pleased to report that they are still full of silliness and fun.
Dave, Tash and Zoë, have been writing together for over a decade, making comedy horror theatre shows, and working with Felix for another seven years. As SpitLip they have been writing Operation Mincemeat for about five years, always amending and supplementing their original script as they step up to bigger, better venues.
David tells how he met Tash and Zoë at Warwick University, while Tash was also in a band with Felix. Through various projects, alongside completing their degrees, they somehow came together to form SpitLip.
Operation Mincemeat is the hilarious and unbelievable true story of a secret mission that helped us win World War Two by using a corpse with ‘secret plans’ in its pocket to fool Hitler. I wanted to know who thought an odd military mission would make a good musical.
‘Yeah, I’ll have to take the blame for that one,’ admits Natasha. ‘It is surely the most boring premise in the entire world but we knew that we wanted to write a musical based on a true story to kind of give us a bit of a leg up with the characters and the story so we didn’t have to do any of that because we’re lazy… I was on holiday with my family and I was complaining about the fact that we hadn’t found anything yet. My brother took out his headphones and said, “I’m listening to a podcast that should be a musical”. I tried to protest that it’s not as easy as that. But it turned out that it was a Stuff You Should Know podcast on Operation Mincemeat and I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I listened all the way through, didn’t stop, ignored my family for the rest of the holiday and sent it immediately to SpitLip with an apology for the fact that I was pretty sure we were going to have to write a musical about World War Two.’
Did you know it was a hit when you wrote it?
‘We knew that the audience found bits funny,’ begins David, ‘which is the joy of writing and the horror of writing comedy as you very much know how well it’s going when you’re performing it. We just feel very lucky that people want to keep coming back and enjoy the show. As to whether we knew it was a hit, I think we hoped we were on the right track and hopefully we still are.’
Felix emphasises that ‘We are still very much focussed on Operation Mincemeat.’
With each transfer there is a process of ‘rethinking and redesigning and rejigging the show’, says Natasha. There is also the added bonus of more budget to work with. ‘It’s amazing to kind of realise all the stuff that we never quite managed to realise with the previous versions. But we feel like the heart of the show and the spirit of the show is very much the same. At the core it’s the show it always was, it just, hopefully, looks a bit prettier than it did before,’ she adds.
The reason for not writing a new show right now is because, as Natasha points out, ‘We really want to finish this one and I think working on something else would do a disservice to this show. Like, we’re very aware that we’ve got one big chance here that we feel incredibly lucky and like jammy bastards to even have a shot at doing a West End show. To focus on anything except Operation Mincemeat right now – if it was then a terrible disaster, we don’t want to be able to turn to each other and go, “damn it, it’s because we were working on another musical” – We want all our guns blazing on this one so there’s no excuse.’
Fortune Theatre, Russell Street, London, WC2B 5HH. Dates: 29th March – 8th July. Times: Monday to Wednesday at 7.30pm; Thursday to Saturday at 8pm; Tuesday and Saturday Matinees at 3pm.
Admission: £19.50-£79.50
Booking: www.OperationMincemeat.com
