New York Calls Up MI5 Agents! 'Operation Mincemeat' to Debut on Broadway in 2025

Broadway is about to welcome an electrifying new production that has already captivated audiences and critics alike. Operation Mincemeat, the Olivier Award-winning British musical, will officially open at the Golden Theatre (home to Stereophonic) on 20 March, 2025, concurrently with its successful run in London's West End. Previews will begin on 15 February, marking a milestone moment for this production that leapfrogged from a small-scale show into a theatrical sensation. 

At the heart of Operation Mincemeat is an unbelievable yet true story from World War II: British intelligence’s audacious plan to deceive Hitler’s forces using a corpse. Set in 1943, when the Allies stood on the cusp of losing the war, a team of British spies enters, concocting a wild scheme involving a dead body, fake documents, and an elaborate plot to mislead the Nazis. The result? A thrilling tale of deception, courage, and sheer audacity at a time when Europe's fate hangs in the balance. Described as Singin’ in the Rain meets Strangers on a Train, the musical blends history with comedy in a way that is fresh, hilarious, and incredibly moving.

The company of Operation Mincemeat. Photo Credit: Matt Crockett

Operation Mincemeat has had a meteoric rise. It started in 2019 as a small, budget-conscious production at London’s New Diorama Theatre before moving to the Southwark Playhouse and Riverside Studios, where it began to build a devoted following. By May 2023, the musical had secured its place in the West End at the Fortune Theatre, where it continues to perform to sold-out audiences every night. The show’s 10th extension will keep it running in London until March 2025, meaning that Operation Mincemeat will play simultaneously in both London and New York – a testament to its universal popularity.

According to creators David Cumming, Felix Hagan, Natasha Hodgson, and Zoë Roberts (known collectively as SpitLip), Mincemeat is inspired by classic American musicals like The Producers and Guys and Dolls. Notable modern musicals, such as Anenue Q and The Book of Mormon, provided them with a favourable mix of clever humour and a strong musical score too – and it is in these footsteps that they hoped to follow.

We never dreamed we would even get to go see shows like these on Broadway, let alone open our show alongside them.

The musical comedy has already garnered an impressive 74 five-star reviews and won numerous prestigious awards, including the top Best New Musical prize at the Olivier Awards this year. STRAND Magazine's Rachel Pantrey and Rachel Annette declared: "It truly is up there with some of the most inventive, unique forms of art on stage at the moment."

The musical’s overwhelming success comes from its unique blend of sharp humour, brilliant writing, and heartwarming performances. Audiences have been particularly drawn to its fresh take on historical events, turning a serious wartime operation into a laugh-out-loud, feel-good spectacle that still packs an emotional punch. From tears in one moment to blink-and-you’ll-miss-it clever lines in the next, you never really know what is coming around the corner (the opening of Act 2 is a jaw-dropping epic and alone worth a ticket). Whether you need a musician for your dad with his piles of WWII books or a satire-loving sister, this gender-bending cast delivers all you want and more.

Operation Mincemeat fans cosplaying as characters from the musical outside the Fortune Theatre. Photo supplied by production.

The musical’s fanbase has exploded since its early days; it now includes notable figures such as Colin Firth (star of the film adaptation of the same series of events), who attended a live performance in January this year. There’s even a devoted group of superfans, affectionately called “Mincefluencers", who have seen the show innumerable times – 140 performances actually, for one of them. To date, over 300,000 tickets have been sold for its West End run, and with Broadway on the horizon, that number is only expected to climb.

90.2 percent of Americans who saw the show in London said it is not “too British” for Broadway, the show's producers say, citing the results of their recent survey. This comes alongside news that the number of American fans has increased sevenfold – from 2 percent to 14 percent in less than a year – further solidifying its universal appeal.  

One of the show's five leading characters, Hester Leggatt, was literally lost to the annals of time, apart from a brief mention in the records of the Operation. But nothing can emphasise the heartfelt and earnest nature of the musical more than its fans literally changing and rebuilding history. They were able to contact involved families, gain unprecedented access to the real MI5 Archives, and unearth exclusive details about the life of an incredible woman who lent her hand to changing the tides of history. Surely if a story can make this happen, it’s a story worth seeing?

A plaque honouring Hester Leggatt's contributions to British war intelligence is now etched onto the Fortune Theatre. Photo supplied by the production.

Broadway tickets for Operation Mincemeat will go on general sale on 20 November, 2024, with a fan pre-sale starting on 18 November. As excitement builds for the musical’s American debut, now is the perfect time to discover this piece of thrilling, original theatre before it becomes the next Broadway sensation. 

"If it gets hounded out of Broadway after one night, it will still be beyond our wildest dreams," Mincemeat's creators-cum-actor agents quipped in reaction to the announcement. "Our producers, we’d imagine, would be less pleased.”