Operation Mincemeat at Southwark Playhouse: An interview with the SpitLip creative team

Following previously sold-out runs at the New Diorama Theatre in 2019, and Southwark Playhouse in 2020 and September 2021, Operation Mincemeat returns to the stage for an extended run back in Southwark in early 2022.

The production dramatises the true events of the World War II operation to outwit German troops using a stolen corpse and false papers. It cleverly blends humour and a contemporary approach to these historical accuracies to create a fast-paced musical extravaganza. 

The Upcoming spoke to SpitLip, the creative team behind this adaptation, to hear about their collaborative efforts, the set design, musical score and everything inbetween!

How would you describe your show, Operation Mincemeat? 

Ok, so we’re a bit biased, but we’d describe it as a fast-paced, funny, action-packed comedy musical about a real-life World War II spy mission that aimed to bamboozle Hitler using a stolen corpse. Simple.  

How did you all get involved in the project and how would you describe your collaboration on the show? 

The four of us – Tash, Zoe, Dave and Felix – have been working (“working”) together for years. Most of us went to university together. We’ve all performed together a lot and we’ve collectively shared a lot of sweat (nowhere near as sexy as it sounds). Having written a lot of shows with a few songs in, we decided to finally go all out and write a full-blown, sequins and singing, tits and teeth, two-act, honest-to-god musical. We knew we wanted to tell a true story, and one that had real heart as well as a lot of mad, hilarious adventure. We heard about the story of Operation Mincemeat from a random podcast, and couldn’t believe what we were hearing. The rest is history (and all the sweat I mentioned earlier). 

What made us excited to write a big proper musical was that traditionally musicals are written in clear departments: music, book and lyrics, usually with different people taking those roles. And then usually those people aren’t also in the musical. We decided to sack all that off and do everything between the four of us. We all write, we all compose, we fight about everything and it’s all incredibly inefficient. But, hopefully, it means that, by turning every scene and song into a sort of Endless Gauntlet, we end up with strong, sturdy, battle-ready stuff by the end. 

There is a lot of effective cross-gender casting in the show, with female characters played by male actors and vice-versa. Why did you choose to present the characters in this way? 

Well, we’ve been writing shows gender-blind since we started creating theatre, simply because it’s the most fun way to write and perform. Such a huge part of the joy of theatre is presenting an audience with a reality and asking them to go with it, and gender presentation is a huge part of that. With this show, it seemed more important than ever – when you’re writing a show taking the piss out of straight white men, the last thing you want to do is fill a stage with straight white men, especially when it’s about World War II. Do we need another two hours of art where men talk about World War II? Almost definitely not. But a show where women get to play bombastic arrogant politicians, where men get to play gentle, brave women, and everyone gets to play everything in between – that felt a lot more fun and interesting to us. Why should men get all the jokes? Why should women get all the soft ballads? It’s theatre, we can do anything! So let’s do it!  

With only five actors rotating all the parts, how hard was it to organise the choreography for such fast-paced character changes? 

Impossibly hard. A nightmare from hell. So many hats, so many fights, so many soothing late-night baths.  

How would you describe the set design and costumes for this performance? 

Our set and costumes are designed by the same wondrous person – Helen Coyston – and she was handed an almost impossible task. There are so many locations in this show – several countries, so many characters, so many quick shifts – we are barely off-stage but need to change who we are clearly and effectively, and also be in the 1940s the entire time. Simple, right? She (as well as our brilliant lighting designer Sherry Coenen) always insisted on putting the story first, making sure that every decision they made helped the audience understand who we are, where we are, heightening every beat and emotion we as writers and performers are trying to convey. Nothing excessive, but still always a lot of fun. They are wonderful.  

There’s a film version of Operation Mincemeat with Colin Firth and Kelly Macdonald coming out early 2022. How do you think the magic of a musical compares with film?

We are so excited to see the film; it’s just the most amazing story, and everyone should know about it, regardless of whether there’s singing involved or not. We can’t speak to the intention of the filmmakers, but we absolutely wanted to fill our audiences with joy, laughter, tears, surprises and amazement at how incredible this story is, how audacious these people were, what a small team can achieve if you believe it can happen. And, let’s be honest, songs do help, even if Colin Firth isn’t singing them.  

The award0winning music in the show is hugely diverse, from jazz through to rap. Can you tell us about the journey of composing such an unpredictable and memorable score? 

We talked quite a lot about whether we wanted to have a musical “palate”. Did we want to draw our musical influences from the 1940s for example, or from a certain musical style. It’s done to tremendous effect in musicals like Hamilton and Six, and it can really give a show a clever and satisfying foundation. However, the more we talked about this show, and the comedy of it, and the songs we wanted to write, we realised that for us, the most fun version of this story had a lot of styles in it, a lot of jumps, a whole rollercoaster of sound, and ultimately we wanted to follow the fun. Sorry Lin Manuel, we just don’t have the discipline.  

Musicals inspired by history, like Six and Hamilton, are hugely popular. What do you think makes your adaptation of the true story of Operation Mincemeat successful for a 21^st century audience? 

We feel passionately that the core story at the heart of this – this small group of people trying to do something amazing – is kind of timeless. It is an unbelievable tale, full of crooked coroners, corpse hunting, spying secrets, gambling with countries, fighting for democracy, deals done over glasses of whiskey, submarines, bunkers and more – and it’s all true. We feel ultimately it’s a really hopeful story, about the things that bring us together, as well as (hopefully) a satirical look at those in charge, who they are, and what exactly they got away with then, as well as now.   
 
What will make this show bigger and better when it extends its run through to February 2022? 

The only thing we’ve added is a 25-minute dream ballet between Hitler and Winston Churchill. No ok, we’re gonna be honest here: it will largely be the same as the one that ran earlier this year. Tickets got snapped up really quickly in the summer and we got lots of nice reviews, so we wanted to put on more shows to give the people what they want. Plus, one of the cast members has new orthotics, so if that’s not a reason to put on more performances, we don’t know what is. 

What do you hope audiences will take away from watching this show?

More than anything, we want to give our audiences a truly joyful night out, filled with laughter, tears and togetherness, with a story that simply has to be seen to be believed. We want to give them the experience of a crazy, amazing true story together in one room, feel those connections we’ve been missing so much, and leave with a head full of catchy tunes, silly jokes, thinking, “God, if that really happened, who knows what we’re all capable of!”. 

Thank you so much for speaking with us!

Ezelle Alblas

Operation Mincemeat is on at Southwark Playhouse from 14^th January until 19^th February 2022. For further information or to book tickets visit the theatre’s website here.