Operation Mincemeat

A musical based on a Second World War British deception plan, which invented a fictitious officer to mislead the enemy before the Allied invasion of Sicily. It is staged at the Fortune Theatre in London's West End.

Operation Mincemeat began at the New Diorama Theatre, where it built a strong reputation over four years before transferring to the West End. The show is performed by an ensemble company and draws its story from a real wartime scheme devised to disguise the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943.

The scheme was carried out by two officers of British intelligence. They obtained the body of a homeless man who had died after swallowing rat poison, dressed him as a Royal Marines officer, and equipped him with personal papers naming him as Captain William Martin, a character who did not exist. The aim was to make the enemy believe the landings would happen somewhere other than Sicily.

The production is staged at the Fortune Theatre on Russell Street, a West End venue in central London. The programme suits anyone interested in the Second World War and in the stage musical as a form, and its wartime subject gives the performance its central story.