Hilarious tale makes Mincemeat of its rivals
How do you spin a genuinely hilarious musical out of a true, grim wartime tale about British intelligence using the corpse of a homeless man in a plot to hoodwink the Nazis? And then, how do you deftly about-turn to set the audience sobbing?
That’s what Operation Mincemeat manages to do, with a cast of just five brilliant multitasking performers who play naval intelligence officers, secretaries, Nazis, submariners, communist film directors and coroners, among others. The tonal shifts from vaudevillian farce to moments of real poignancy are handled with great skill, the gag rate is breathtaking and the songs are bangers.
Before curtain up I talked to a fan seeing this for the seventh time. I wondered why anyone would see the same show seven times. Now I know.
Three weeks ago we reviewed Private Lives, Noël Coward’s 1930 play about infidelity and unsuitable couples. Now here’s a new production of the play that made Coward’s name. It’s about, yes, infidelity and unsuitable couples, among other things.
The Vortex caused a sensation when first performed in 1924. The depiction of a married upper-class woman with a much younger lover was thought scandalous. You can tell it’s about the upper classes because there are characters called Bunty and Pauncefort and people say ‘too divine’ and ‘frightfully’ at regular intervals. Pianist Nicky, 24, arrives home with fiancee Bunty after a year in Paris. When the pair fall out, Nicky confronts his mother Florence, a once great beauty, about her lovers and she chides him about his cocaine habit – a metaphor for his homosexuality, some critics believe.
The play starts off jolly but becomes frightfully fraught. Florence and Nicky are well played by actual mother and son Lia Williams and Joshua James and lots of Coward’s sharp lines still land. ‘Isn’t Tom a darling?’ Florence asks her friend, Helen. ‘Yes, dear, without being aggressively brilliant,’ says Helen.
But the fact you can now see its once-shocking subject matter addressed in any teatime TV soap undoubtedly robs the play of some of its impact.
Somerset Maugham’s The Circle has worn better. Arnold (Pete Ashmore) is visited by his mother Lady Catherine (Jane Asher) and her husband Lord Porteous (Nicholas Le Prevost). Arnold hasn’t seen his mother in the 30 years since she ran off from his father, Clive (Clive Francis). And now history looks like repeating itself as Arnold’s wife contemplates leaving him.
This is an effervescent crowdpleaser, and what a pleasure to see Asher, Francis and Le Provost win such big laughs from the audience.