Operation Mincemeat

“Operation Mincemeat” being a theatre show and especially a comedy, of course a lot of stuff had to be dramatized and added to make the show enjoyable but many of the things in the musical did actually happen.  Montagu did go on to make a film about Operation Mincemeat and Willie Watkins was a real American pilot that crash landed in Spain on the day of the operation.  The characters’ personalities and actions were exaggerated for comedic effect but most of what is said in the musical is actually true which has been very cool to learn about after watching it.  The way spying was presented in the show was far more simiplier than how I’m sure it is in the real world.  However, if all the complicated parts were shown then the show would be really boring.  I really enjoyed this show’s portrayal of spying.  Spying is kind of a form of theatre and I think the small cast and constantly changing costumes really added to that element of theatre within the show.  Each actor played several roles throughout the play with many quick shifts between characters matching the quick changes spies make on an espionage mission.  Spies just like actors wear costumes and try to play a character to the best of their abilities, they also have a ton of people backing them up behind the scenes.  I think the common belief of what spying is like is much more like acting, while the mission carried out in the show was more on the tech side.  Their mission was to create a believable set essentially to fool the Nazis.  They gathered and created props and costumes to make the soldier look believable and then they employed Haselden as a spy (actor) to convey certain messages, essentially just saying lines.