Operation Mincemeat is a comical look at Spycraft, perhaps being the oddest and most macabre look at espionage I’ve seen to date. Mincemeat portrays spying as more of a prolonged group project than one individual On Her Majesty’s Secret Service going to foreign lands with a License To Kill. Its version of spying takes away the frills and lands us on an absurd plot that had no right to work as well as it did. While my frame of reference for real-world spying isn’t amazing, it certainly hits a happy medium of making fun of real-world spying but also portraying it semi-accurately given its story’s real-world basis. With as many references as there were to Ian Fleming and his Bond novels, in particular, his writing Dr. No, it’s almost as if the show was trying to highlight the disconnect between the spying done here and those in the likes of Fleming’s novels. Giving us a more realistic look than something like that which was very adjacent to reality but embellished for the sake of drama and action. Realistic or not, I adored the show, plus we had A View to Kill which meant my eyes were glued to the stage the whole time. 

While the same level of theatrics may be present in the theater we know and love today with dead bodies taking a Skyfall, classified documents For Your Eyes Only, and enough character work to scare The Living Daylights out of any actor, I don’t think anything the characters did could exactly be considered a form of theater. Was it an amazing act of deception? Yes, but at the end of the day, I’m very much of the opinion theater is done as a performance where the audience knowingly suspends their disbelief. While I fully see how this fits the criteria for being a performance, with a story, and a level of creative exigence behind it I think it’s more so a very creative trick. That being said, the story itself makes for a great musical which has made me, not dissimilar to Montagu’s brother who came From Russia With Love, very interested to see a film version. 

Overall, I adored Operation Mincemeat. It’s a show with a Goldeneye for detail in both its technical and performance aspects which left me on the edge of my seat watching the drama and comedy unfold. When it comes to my praise, The World Is Not Enough.  All I can say is I’ll remember the experience when I’m a Spectre and apologize dearly to anyone who’s reading this that I committed so hard to this bit, I’ve written stupider things though so I’ll Never say Never Again.

Long time no see, my paparazzi! Today we started off our trip with a journey to the Sky Garden, which is another place where one can get a very nice view of London. We spent about an hour there, hanging out above the city before leaving for lunch. Personally, I sat 160m above the city and ate a very good blueberry muffin that I stole from the hotel breakfast. After that, the group ventured out to Borough Market, which is a market in London that has existed, in various locations, for almost a thousand years.

 In the modern day, the market is trying to use more sustainable practices. It is a hub of culinary diversity and has cuisines from all over the world as well as a beautiful array of produce.

My visit to Borough Market today was a very quick in-and-out stop for food, mainly because I had to book it back to my hotel room to start writing my blog posts for your entertainment (and also for my grade…). I ventured out with Kaylee and Emma and our first stop was The Free From Bakehouse, which is a stand in the market that has a lot of baked goods accessible to those with dietary restrictions. This is especially ideal for our group, as Kaylee is vegan and Emma is lactose intolerant, so we got a red velvet and a lemon meringue cupcake from that stand, both of which were really good! Even after sitting for the entire time we explored the market and the tube ride, they survived, except for that the frosting on the red velvet definitely melted a little. I do the same thing in the tube station, to be fair… those things are HOT, and not in the good way.

After that, the three of us braved the congested aisles of the market, trying to find cuisines that we hadn’t tried before, as we were tasked with finding and trying new food. This was especially difficult for me, as I tend to be a generally adventurous eater on my own. By the time we had gone around the inside part of the market, I had only found a small number of stands that had cuisines I had never tried. Two of those were Mei Mei, a Singaporean stand, and Kubba, which had Iraqi food. I got a Singapore Vegan Curry from Mei Mei, while Kaylee got a vegan platter from Kubba, which we both shared.

I didn’t get to see the exact process of my food getting made because of the way that the stand was set up, but I could see at least that they were cooking most of it fresh. The general consensus on the food here was that my food was better, but both were far too pricey for justification, when I know that I can get more food for less in other places. However, I really did enjoy my curry and would be willing to try Singaporean and Iraqi food again; they both have really interesting flavor profiles that I want to try to bring into my own cooking.

Immediately after we finished eating, we all decided it would be best to head home, but first we had a harrowing experience trying to find the nearby tube station. Luckily, all ended up fine, as we found the overground train station and could find our way downstairs from there.

Tonight I’ll be seeing Machinal at the Old Vic with Kaylee and Emma, which is super exciting! This is a show that we bought tickets to independent of the group, and I am just still so thrilled by the prospect of being abroad, and seeing so much amazing theatre in such historical of a place.

More to come!

CW

What’s up everybody?! I’ve been up to a lot since my last blog post a few days ago, including getting some vegan (and non-vegan) fish and chips! Today, despite all of the other things I’ve been doing, I am going to talk a little bit about the show that we saw last night called Operation Mincemeat. It actually has a theme which applies to all you stalkers really well: spying.

Operation Mincemeat is a comedic musical about an actual operation during the Second World War where the British, on the side of the Allied Forces, distracted Germany from the invasion of Sicily by making them believe that they Allies were attacking Sardinia instead.

How would they do this, you ask? Well of course, they floated the dead body of a supposedly dead Allied pilot carrying totally-not-falsified documents and plans of the Allied invasion of Sardinia (which didn’t happen!) so that Hitler would move his troops to Sardinia instead. This plan obviously has a lot of factors that depend basically entirely on chance… The idea that the Germans would actually find the body at all is entirely absurd, when you think of it. Surprisingly, this all worked through a lot of planning and not a small amount of luck.

While I would recommend reading up on this operation, (because it really is interesting; between writing this paragraph and the last one I went on an about 20 minute Wikipedia rabbit hole reading about it!) I am going to talk about the usage of the idea of spying in the play, as well as the function of the actual operation as a theatrical event.

In the play, the character Ewen Montagu is suspected of passing classified information about the operation to his brother, who is a communist spy. It is shown to be a discreet and frowned upon position, obviously, but difficult to detect. By the end of the play, nearly everyone suspects Ewen of spying for the Axis powers, though he is only collecting information to write a history of what the team has done to win the war. Because of this circumstance, it turns out that all of the characters are spying on him as well, which results in a culture of mistrust.

The creation of this team, however, was indeed a theatrical performance. They dressed up this dead man and created an entire life for him, which is what actors do all of the time, though not usually to corpses…I feel like that would be unethical. However, we take a character on a page and decide what their inner life is–what they do when nobody’s looking, how they treat others, and even what they would wear or put into their house. All of these things play into how theatermakers view the world and their craft. What the officers in Operation Mincemeat did was exactly that, though it was more like the improvisation of the character. Similarly, they did it to achieve a purpose, which is what all of theatre is about.

That’s all I’ve got to say about that! I really enjoyed Operation Mincemeat–I’ve said a few times since seeing the show that I wasn’t sure about the concept of a military operation during WWII being presented as a comedic musical at intermission, but by the time the curtain dropped, I was sure. Operation Mincemeat is a masterpiece of very tasteful comedy, and I enjoyed every moment. The pacing and resolution is all so satisfying and definitely was a breath of fresh air. Finally, I know all of you have been waiting for an answer to the question I posed in the title, and I wish I could tell you. I went to Operation Mincemeat specifically to find that out for you, but they couldn’t tell me either. So I just don’t know. Maybe you should ask this guy.

Next up on the blog–I’ll be writing a whole blog post about Borough Market and its food, so if all of you are looking to me for meal inspiration, you’re in for a treat!

CW

Imagine.

The world is at war, and you are losing. You desperately need to strike the opposing forces, but your plans must not be discovered. To take it further than that, you need to create an entirely fake set of plans to feed the enemy in the hopes that they will leave a key location undefended. But how do you make these fake plans believable?

Why, plant them on a dead body made to look like a soldier who crashed and drowned at sea of course!!

This may sound bizarre, unlikely, and downright unbelievable to some, but it is actually based on the true story of Operation Mincemeat from WWII.

Desperate for a way to invade Sicily without strong resistance, naval intelligence officers Ewen Montagu and Charles Cholmondeley concocted a plan in which they would set a dead body adrift in Spanish waters with the hopes of the Germans finding it. On the body, they planted fake documents and papers detailing Allied plans to invade Sardinia, hoping it would draw German forces away from Sicily. In addition to the fake plans, Montagu and Cholmondeley created an entire life for their “drowned soldier.” His name became Major William Martin, and he had receipts from his bank and nights out and love letters from his nonexistent girl back home. All these tiny details were created to make the body and life of the soldier look real to any suspicious Germans, and in the end, it worked!! The Germans bought the fake plans, and moved their forces to Sardinia which allowed the Allied forces to invade through Sicily with minimal losses.

This story is remarkable, though admittedly morbid, but at its heart, it involves the mistreatment of a real person. Glyndwr Michael is the real name behind the fake story, and I appreciate that the writers of Operation Mincemeat made sure to honor him. The musical is a very comedic telling of this seemingly dark story, and it could have easily turned sour and distasteful had they not taken the time to point out the ethical flaws in the plan, as well as the victory it allowed.

Overall, I loved this show. The actors were phenomenal, and I was amazed at the skill it took to keep up with the lyrically complex patter songs. The set was also incredible, and each time a new door or feature was introduced, I was stunned. The versatility of the set was a a technical marvel. The lighting design was brilliant as well, and so was the costuming. There were so many quick changes throughout the show, as five actors played fifty plus characters, but the designer had clearly thought through how to create magnificent pieces while still allowing things to move at a brisk pace. The only thing that presented a problem at times was the sound mixing. It could have been where I was sitting in the theatre, but there were a few moments where it was hard to hear the actors over the band. Thankfully, I did not miss any important lines due to this, but I could see some people being taken out by the potentially missed dialogue.

The operation undertaken in this play and in real life represents a kind of theatre. The officers behind the plan had to create a character (Major Martin), and they gave him an incredibly detailed background of given circumstances. These circumstances were meant to mislead the Germans, so there was also a clear objective and target audience for the deception. Not only do Martin’s given circumstances mirror certain aspects of theatre, but Haselden’s work in Spain represents theatre in a more literal sense. He had to act and perform on behalf of the allies. If one considers acting as living truthfully under imaginary circumstances, then it could be said that Haselden was doing this by behaving as if the Allies did not have a plan when they did.

Mincemeat.

The ingredients usually include spice, fat, nuts, sugar, fruits, and…. meat. The term for this food comes from 15th Century England, when this mincemeat was made to preserve meat. (I am getting this information from the Food Network, so if it is incorrect, blame them). What is Operation Mincemeat, you might ask?

A really good musical.

Oh, and also a British deception plan during World War II to trick the Nazis into thinking the Allied powers were going to invade Sardinia instead of Sicily. That’s kind of irrelevant, though.

Just kidding. It’s kind of what the whole musical is about.

It is interesting how the title of the operation relates to the tool used to carry out the deception– a preserved body. A deemed “useless,” body or “The Man Who Never Was,” became one of the most important aspects of the Allied powers winning the Second World War. A crazy idea by Charles Cholmondeley or “the bug man”– creating a faux drowned soldier revealing faux invasion plans– defied expectations and successfully diverted the German army from Sicily. The same Cholmondeley who stated that newts did, in fact, have anuses and a fear of death, he’s not so sure about.

What does it mean to be a spy?

First, being a spy is pretty cool and makes you seem mysterious. If you can keep a secret, at least.

But is it worth it: to deceive those who have sworn their trust in you? John Bevan certainly thought that this choice was worth it for Ewan Montagu. Adamant that Montagu was betraying the British military, Bevan set Hester Leggatt on a mission to discover if Montagu was stealing classified information about Operation Mincemeat to conspire with his Soviet Communist brother.

Because secret files about the operation were turning up lost and Montagu was oh-so calm about it, audience members could easily believe that he devised a plan to stop this mission in its tracks. This was so believable that not only Hester was against him, but soon came Jean and Charlie after. The presence of spying in this operation created an atmosphere of suspicion and distrust. It created a circle of deceit within a group of people who passionately planned their own deception. With lives on the line, who can you trust?

Was Levan so jaded by past broken trust that he felt he must question everyone’s intentions? Even though Montagu was readily prepared and excited for this mission, lies and duplicity were too common during this time, making it hard to hold out faith in anyone.

The musical hilariously represented spying in a way that reflected tropes of the Elizabethan Comedy of Errors through elements like mistaken identity, (William Martin’s faux identity), misdelivered letters (the telephone/briefcase bit), and characters “just missing,” each other, (this one is kind of a stretch, but it made me think of when Charlie kept trying to look in Montagu’s briefcases but kept getting interrupted and jumping when someone came in). The playwrights weaved these tropes into the theme of spying to give this heavy-weighted circumstance some chuckles. I giggled a lot.

To some, Operation Mincemeat could be considered a play within a play. Sanford Meisner famously coins acting as “living truthfully under imaginary circumstances.” Well, although Glyndwr Michael was not alive, he was living “dead-fully,” as Bill Martin under imaginary circumstances. An imaginary birth certificate, engagement, and really exciting night bar hopping. That’s close, right? It can be argued that Bill was an actor in the British intelligence’s play. The British Intelligence were the directors. And the costume designers. And the playwrights, too. The Nazi Army were their target audience and the waters of Huelva, Spain were their set.

Sounds pretty theatrical to me.

Operation Mincemeat was a hilarious retelling of an iconic historical moment, rich in character, musicality, and campiness. Truly a breath of fresh air and a show I don’t think I could ever get tired of!

All for now,

xoxo Gossip Girl

Operation Minced Meat was an absolute spectacle to watch on the stage. I enjoyed every moment of this hilarious musical. We’ve been on run of deep and dramatic straight plays, so it felt nice to stray away from that and get something a little more light hearted. I really appreciate the direction this show decided to go in. It easily could’ve been written as a straight play and succeeded in that manner. But I researched this show and it seems to have already been done as a serious drama. Just not on the stage but rather, on the silver screen. Twice. “The Man who Never Was”, which came out in 1956 and of course, “Operation Mincemeat”, the 2021 film. That being said, I enjoyed the bold decision to turn this into a self aware extravaganza that didn’t shy away from the touchy subject matter.

Speaking of touchy subject matter, I don’t think this show would be allowed to play in Germany. When Act II commenced, I was in awe. It was, for a lack of better words, a Nazi Party. I felt like I was in a club with the EDM styled music and spectacular choreography. And with all of the actors wearing glittery Nazi outfits, it wasn’t short of shock value. If it weren’t for the ending comment saying, “Whos side are you all on”? I think it might’ve offended a few folks. It very much felt like a standup comdey show at times which I really liked.

Spying is presented in this show in various ways. A moment that sticks out to me is when the informant from Spain known as Haselden was trying to make it clear that the suitcase indeed held top secret British information to the German spies. Haselden plays an important role in the spy process of this show.

Overall, I loved this show and I’m going to look into more of this remarkable moment in history.

Today we saw Operation Mincemeat and it was terrific. The music, lighting, and choreography was amazing. Several scenes the choreography was so good that I was baffled at how only five actors could pull it off. The comedic timing of the script and delivery of the lines made the entire performance an attention pulling spectacle. What really amazed me the most was the sheer versatility of the set. The actors used the entire set like a giant swiss army set with hidden doors, an entire lighting structure, and a foldout staircase. I had to pull my jaw off the floor every time they introduced another function to what I had first thought to be a regular flat wall. Several scenes in the choreography were mind blowing as any interaction with more than one phone ended up being hilarious and reminded me of the three stooges but the preciseness of it really impressed me. The music and singing for the production was also quite well done as I was bouncing along in my seat the whole time through every song. The actors’ performances were nothing to sneeze at either as there were some very compelling emotional scenes that were delivered beautifully. The song regarding writing the letter was amazingly sung and brought a healthy dose of seriousness to this humerus production. Essentially I think this play is worth watching to anyone looking to have a wonderful time. 

Regarding the prompt assignment, Spying is presented through the whole play it’s about espionage, the deception is a kind of theater as it has an intent theme and audience the germans being the audience the message being the importance of the briefcase and the intent being to convince the enemy utilizing a performance, props, costumes and set. Bill was even the character they created.

I loved this show! In terms of spying (if I’m understanding the prompt correctly) I think that spies are veryyy frowned upon in this time. Throughout the show they thought that Montague was a spy giving information to his brother, when in reality, he was just writing a short film? This was such a weird twist to me… but to be fair the whole show was unpredictable, I quite literally had no idea what was going to happen next.

They used spies to get all of their information as well. The spanish guy ( I forget his name) was their way of getting their information of how the operation was going. It’s very ironic because spies are so “bad” in their eyes yet they use their own to further their own agenda, but I guess that makes sense, eat or get eaten.

I would say the deception is kind of a form a theatre. I don’t really think lying is theatre in that sense, but I guess they did make Bill a whole character and gave him a back story and props and had an objective that he was supposed to fulfill, so I guess in a way there were theatrical elements to what they were doing. I enjoyed how detailed they got with Bills backstory and everything, which I guess is the whole reason it worked.

I just want to applaud the choreography and how detailed it was in literally every moment of the show, the actors did an insane job with all of it. The costume changes were also SO impressive, they would be off stage for 5 seconds and come on with a completely different outfit on.

I thought the actors were amazing! They all had beautiful voices and were all so funny. They also played their different parts so well, I think it was casted perfectly.

Overall, loved it!