There are musicals which entertain you, musicals which move you and musicals which leave you wondering how on earth anybody came up with the idea in the first place. OPERATION MINCEMEAT, which opened at the recently refurbished Swansea Grand Theatre last night, manages all three.
On paper, it sounds improbable: a musical comedy about the secret wartime mission in which British intelligence dressed a dead man as a Royal Marines officer, filled his pockets with carefully fabricated clues and floated him towards the coast of Spain carrying false invasion plans.
Yet improbability is precisely what makes it work.
Set in 1943, the show follows intelligence officers Ewen Montagu (HOLLY SUMPTON) and Charles Cholmondeley (SEÃN CAREY) as they devise an audacious plan to convince Hitler that Allied forces intend to invade Greece rather than Sicily. What follows is part spy thriller, part farce and part heartfelt tribute to the overlooked people whose bravery shaped history.
The production arrives in Swansea carrying a remarkable reputation. Created by the musical comedy company SpitLip, it began life far away from the glamour of the West End, receiving its first scratch performance at The Lowry before opening in the tiny, 77-seat New Diorama Theatre in 2019. Sell-out runs followed at Southwark Playhouse and Riverside Studios before it reached London’s Fortune Theatre in 2023.
Since then, this once-small show has become a theatrical phenomenon. It won the 2024 Olivier Award for Best New Musical, transferred to Broadway, received four Tony Award nominations and has attracted an extraordinarily loyal following. Its journey from fringe experiment to international success feels almost as unlikely as the wartime operation it depicts.
Swansea audiences are getting the genuine article, too. This is the London company, with CHRISTIAN ANDREWS, CHARLOTTE HANNA-WILLIAMS, JAMIE-ROSE MONK, supported by KATY ELLIS, GEORGINA HAGEN, JORDAN PEARSON and MORGAN PHILLIPS displaying the versatility, energy and precision needed to bring an astonishing number of characters to life.
With only five performers playing everyone from intelligence officers and secretaries to submarine crews, coroners and Nazi agents, the transformations happen at breathtaking speed. A hat, a coat, a different posture or a change of voice is often all it takes. The sheer theatrical invention is part of the joy, and every performer is given the chance to be ridiculous one moment and heartbreakingly sincere the next.
The comedy comes thick and fast. There are knowing jokes about class, privilege, bureaucracy and Britain’s fondness for pretending everything is under control when it plainly is not. The songs leap confidently between musical styles, while the choreography is executed with an apparent looseness that conceals exceptional timing and discipline.
But Operation Mincemeat has a secret weapon. Just when you think you understand the kind of evening you are watching, it changes direction completely.
The laughter gives way to something quieter and more human. Behind the absurd disguises and impossible plan are people carrying loneliness, disappointment, fear and grief. The show’s emotional centre is “Dear Billâ€, a beautiful, restrained song built around the fictitious love letter placed on the body of “Major William Martinâ€. It is a moment of extraordinary stillness which seems to make the entire theatre hold its breath.
Later, “Useful†gives a voice to women whose vital wartime work was too often overlooked or written out of the official story. These scenes never feel forced or sentimental. They work because the production earns them, allowing the comedy to lower our defences before quietly breaking our hearts.
There is also a particularly important Welsh connection. The man whose body was used in the real operation is widely accepted to have been Glyndwr Michael, born in Aberbargoed. Homeless and largely forgotten when he died in London at just 34, he was given the invented identity of Major William Martin and became central to one of the war’s most successful acts of deception.
That knowledge gives the story added poignancy in Wales. Beneath the show’s celebration of ingenuity lies an uncomfortable question about class, identity and who is remembered by history. Glyndwr Michael had no voice in what happened to him, yet his contribution may have helped save thousands of Allied lives. His story deserves to be known, particularly here. The Dictionary of Welsh Biography tells more about the real man behind “the man who never was” – HERE.
There is another reason the production resonates in Swansea. This was a strategically important port city which understood the war not as a distant political event but as something terrifyingly immediate. During the Three Nights’ Blitz of February 1941, 230 people were killed and much of the city centre was destroyed. Swansea Museum preserves the story of those devastating nights, making a musical about sacrifice, deception and the hidden cost of war especially meaningful here.
Only last week the cast made a stop in Cardiff to honour Glyndwr Michael. They were joined by a specially-formed choir made up of local and military community volunteers, including Cardiff Military Wives Choir, Cowbridge Male Voice Choir, St Patrick’s Church Choir and Choir for Good, for a very special rendition of ‘Sail On, Boys’ from the musical.
Following the performance, David Cumming, one of the writers and composers of Operation Mincemeat, unveiled a bench dedicated to Glyndwr’s memory in Alexandra Gardens, home to the Welsh National War Memorial.
The production’s great achievement is that none of this history weighs it down. It remains fast, colourful, mischievous and enormously entertaining. It can make an audience laugh at something gloriously silly and, minutes later, confront the painful reality behind the joke.
By the finale, you feel as though you have travelled much further than the distance between London, Spain and Sicily. You have been taken from outrageous comedy to genuine suspense, from dazzling cleverness to downright emotional storytelling.
Operation Mincemeat is inventive, irreverent and performed with tremendous heart. Swansea Grand has welcomed many major productions, but this one feels particularly special: a home-grown theatrical success story, an extraordinary wartime tale and, at its centre, the largely forgotten life of a Welshman.
It is brilliant fun—but its emotional impact is what stays with you long after the final salute.
OPERATION MINCEMEAT runs at Swansea Grand Theatre until Saturday 26th September. Details HERE.
