By Aline Mahrud

WORTH A LOOK?: *****

WHEN?: Sunday 31 December, runs through 21 September 2024 RUNTIME: 130 minutes (including a 20-minute interval)

The moment we surrendered our heart to this spoof World War Two sleeper hit musical was when – rather than misdirection – we thought spinster administrator Hester Leggett played by the brilliant Jak Malone had simply made a mistake.

• Read on for reasons including how it’s impossible not to be captured by the joyous insanity of it all

We’d listened to the original cast recording a lot in preparation for seeing the new musical and never really noticed that when Leggett and colleagues are composing a fake letter from a lover to go in the pocket of a dead airman that she sings ‘Tom’ once rather than the titular Dear Bill.

It was only on seeing the show and noticing the reaction of the cast around her that the woman previously ridiculed for her single status was in fact singing convincingly and movingly about the soldier love she lost during the first war.

It’s a letter which speaks about the little things in life that make us laugh, talking to roses, ‘Diana’s piano is getting much better, Well, I say better, I really just mean louder’ and the universal ‘But it’s good just to hear you, Even just in my head, And the roses just miss you …’

We’ll admit that the reason we didn’t seek out Operation Mincemeat, which has transferred to the West End after a string of runs at theatres including Southwark Playhouse which was very convenient for us, sooner was because we had no real interest in the actual events which it draws on.

Operation Mincemeat, also a recent film, was a 1943 British deception operation to disguise the Allied invasion of Sicily during World War Two.

What musical comedy troupe SpitLip do brilliantly is across its 5-strong cast – David Cumming, Claire Marie Hall, Natasha Hodgson, Jak Malone and Zoë Roberts – play a multitude of parts in a comedy which pastiche a range of genres written by Cumming, Hodgson, Roberts and Felix Hagan.

We loved the dynamic between typist Jean Leslie and boss Leggett as the former grew under the latter’s guidance with her initial frustration expressed in song All The Ladies that is as good as anything Little Mix might’ve done.

Elsewhere ‘Reich on the mic’ Act 2 opener Das Übermensch (The Superman) offers Nazi formation dancing and side-splitting lyrics: ‘Hands up for the Führer all night, Goosestep to the left, jump to the far right.’

But it’s also in David Cumming’s bold yet shy scientist Charles Cholmondeley finding his role in the security service’s championing of diverse talents and being combined with Hodgson’s hugely charismatic Montagu who isn’t interested in a scheme’s finer details that tugged at our heartstrings.

There is also a very funny running joke about Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, which could have dominated a lesser show but the 5-strong cast do an amazing job of carrying off a complicated story with so many more characters and it’s impossible not to come away from it having both shed a quiet tear and yet been captured by the joyous insanity of it all.

• Main picture via Facebook courtesy ATG
• Have you seen Operation Mincemeat before and are what did you think of this production? Tickets
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