Theatre 2026: Operation Mincemeat Musical @ Royal Alex

Operation Mincemeat was the code name for an elaborate scheme of deception carried out by British Intelligence in 1943 that contributed to the success of a critical invasion and helped to turn the tide of World War II. It was so far-fetched and macabre that it comes as no surprise that the germ of the idea came from future James Bond creator Ian Fleming, who was employed as an assistant in Naval Intelligence at the time.  He helped pen the “Trout Memo”, which offered up 54 suggestions for deceiving the enemy, of which the idea that became Mincemeat was #28. The concept was to drop a dead body into the sea with “secret” documents containing false information meant to misdirect the Germans. Fleming attributed the strategy to a similar plot from the 1937 detective novel called The Milliner’s Hat Mystery by Basil Thomson. The goal was to convince the Reich that the Allies planned to invade Sardinia as opposed to the true target of Sicily.

As core members of the counter-espionage organization called British Twenty Committee, Ewen Montagu (Naval Intelligence) and Charles Cholmondeley (MI5) were tasked with adopting and expanding the concept. They contacted pathologist Sir Bernard Spilsbury and a coroner to find the perfect corpse whose cause of death could plausibly pass for a recently deceased drowned man of the correct age and physique but also who had no family seeking to bury him. The candidate selected was Glyndwr Michael, a homeless man who died after ingesting rat poison. With the help of many agents and officers throughout MI5 and the British military, Montagu and Cholmondeley created a persona for their corpse. They named him Captain William Martin, who was on a mission to deliver secret documents to the Allies when his plane was shot down. The corpse would be transported via submarine to the Southern coast of Spain near Huelva and released into the water to be discovered by the Spanish, who were known to share information with Germany.

In order to sell the story and Martin’s persona, the team went to great lengths give him a backstory including creating a fiancée named Pam waiting for him back home. They enlisted MI5 junior clerk Jean Leslie to portray Pam and added her photo to the “pocket litter” found on his body, along with receipts for an engagement ring, theatre ticket stubs and several love letters that were written by Leslie and senior secretary Hester Leggatt. A briefcase was strapped to his trenchcoat containing the letter with the misleading battle plans, as well as other correspondence between various high-level officers.

The ploy worked and the misdirection caused Hitler to reallocate troops to Sardinia, leaving Sicily relatively unprotected. The Allies successfully liberated the island with surprisingly low numbers of casualties on both sides. The operation was almost derailed by an unexpected turn of fate when an American pilot (also named William!) crash-landed and survived in the exact same location a mere 3 days before Martin’s corpse was discovered. Suspicious of this incredible coincidence, the Spanish conducted an autopsy on Martin. British diplomatic vice-consul Francis Haselden was in Spain to help the plan along. He influenced the autopsy results to reflect a drowning and then lured the Spanish into passing the false information to the Germans.

Because of the morally questionable way that the team procured their body, the details of the operation was kept secret for many years after the war ended. Since then, there have been many books, movies, plays and now even a musical based on this fantastical but true story. In 1953, Montagu wrote the government-sanctioned book “The Man Who Never Was” which was turned into a movie in 1956. More adaptations were created throughout the years including a 2014 BBC television miniseries “Fleming” The Man Who Would be Bond”, telling the story from Ian Fleming’s perspective.

In 2022, a war/spy drama aired on Netflix starring Colin Firth as Ewen Montagu, Matthew Macfadyen as Charles Cholmondeley, Kelly Macdonald as Jean Leslie and Penelope Wilton as Hester Leggatt. For dramatic purposes, the movie added fictitious subplots including a love triangle between Charles, Ewen, and Jean, suspicion that Montagu might be passing on secret information to his brother, a known Soviet agent, and a grieving sister who wants to claim Glyndwr Michael’s body and had to be paid off.  I think the true story is so fascinating on its own that these tired Hollywood trope additions don’t seem necessary.

Surprisingly, the 2023 West-End stage musical comedy of Operation Mincemeat actually follows the historical facts of the mission much more closely, despite being a fast-paced, farcical, irreverent, gender-bending five-hander.  Five actors play the major roles of Ewen, Charles, Jean, Leslie, and superior officer Colonel Johnny Bevan who was the gatekeeper and decision maker for the operation within the team. In addition to these five main roles, the actors played almost 80 other characters, often in quick-change style with rapid on/off-stage costume changes or by simply donning or removing hats or glasses or by changing posture and demeanor while remaining on stage.

Traditionally, the male roles of Montagu and Bevan are played by female actors while the female role of Hester Legatt is played by a male actor. The deliberate gender-blind casting is meant to alter the way the audience perceives human behaviour. It allows the female actors to portray roles of power, satirizing MI5’s misogynistic “old boys club” while the male character gets to show vulnerability. This is especially true in Hester’s showstopping song Dear Bill where she provides the text of for the fake love letter that Pam writes to William Martin. It starts off as fiction but eventually morphs into a heart-wrenching lament as Hester relives her personal sorrow over her own lost love Tom, who died in WWI. It is impressive to note that the male actor is not given over-the-top feminine wardrobe to play Hester amongst his other male roles. Wearing his white shirt and grey slacks, he turns into character with a mere change of posture, voice and spectacles on a chain that he props onto the bridge of his nose. Yet he is totally believable in the role.

Through all the character changes and dialogue, the musical focuses on the extreme level of detail, administrative bureaucracy, mundane paperwork, and office politics that was involved as well as highlighting the female clerical staff with several songs including Useful where Jean and Hester lament never getting recognition for their contributions. Instead of introducing a love triangle or a fake relative for the corpse as in the movie, the musical satirizes the real-life issue of the additional plane crash, dubbing the U.S. survivor “Willie” Watkins and making him a stereotypical, loud and pompous American caricature.

Despite sticking closer to history, the musical also takes some liberties and makes additions for dramatic purposes. Similar to the movie, there is a subplot involving Montagu absconding with secret documents and being suspected as being a spy when in reality, he wants the information to write a script for a movie after the war. Jean Leslie is portrayed as a highly ambitious clerk that fights for agency, recognition and feminism while in reality, she was a newly hired 18-year-old clerk who donated her photo but was much less central to executing the plan. One deliberate change from history was the portrayal of pathologist Bernard Spilsbury as a morally corrupt con man when at the time, he was a well-respected expert. It has been described as “historical revisionism utilized for dramatic justice” since decades later, it was proven that he performed sloppy autopsies and often falsified evidence leading to wrongful convictions and even executions. It was illuminating to see photos and read about the real heroes of this operation within the program compared to the portrayals that we watched.

The songs and score of this musical were ambitious, complex and eclectic, featuring a wide range of different musical genres and pastiches while doing a great job of advancing the plot through the lyrics. The only issue was the unusually muddy sound quality at the Royal Alexandra which typically has good acoustics, making it difficult to make out the words sung in some of the fast-paced songs.

The opening song “Born to Lead” as well as “The Pitch” are written as classic military tunes or traditional marching band music with fast-paced patter and a strong marching beat. Cleverly, the opening few bars of Born to Lead sample a snippet of the iconic James Bond Theme by as a tribute to the contributions which Bond author Ian Fleming made to this operation. Hip-hop and Rap are used for rapid-fire lyrical delivery in the songs “God That’s Brilliant” and “Bevan’s Update”, conveying significant information so quickly that you need to really listen to hear it all. The Disco-Pop song “All the Ladies”, where Jean dreams about working alongside the male officers, noticeably riffs on Beyoncé’s iconic song “All the Single Ladies (Put a Ring On it)”. “Sail On, Boys”, sung by the crew on the submarine, is a traditional folk song or sea shanty. Despite its title, “The Ballad of Willie Watkins” is an upbeat bluegrass/country rock song, while the satirical “Das Ubermensch”, which mocks fascism and the Third Reich, is a high-octane German techno and Eurodance parody. And as already mentioned, “Dear Bill” and “Useful” are sincere, heartfelt ballads. My favourite tune is a patter song, “Act As If”, that features rapid, rhythmic delivery of lyrics that mirrors the escalating panic, manipulation, and tension between the characters.

The closing numbers of the two acts of this musical are both showstoppers. Act I ends with a mashup of another fast-paced patter song “Just for Tonight”, where Montagu convinces the team to prematurely celebrate the success of their plot”, juxtapositioned against a somber reprise of “Sail On, Boys” as the submarine comes under attack while trying to complete its mission of releasing the body. The five actors on stage rapidly switch between the two songs through the use of lighting and by donning and removing of the sailors’ knit beanie hats.

The tour-de-force final song of the show titled “Glitzy Finale” summarizes the success of the operation, then becomes a reprisal melody, calling back to many of the previous song motifs with their eclectic genre styles. Next the song switches to Montagu finally directing his film about the caper, with an actor playing Cholmondeley, who was deemed not right for the role of playing himself.

It is in this scene that we finally found out why the audience was not let into the theatre until 10 minutes after the show was supposed to start, causing long lineups of patrons waiting outside for over 30 minutes. As Montagu brags and exaggerates about his accomplishments, he is supposed to be hoisted into the air, just to have the hoist malfunction and drop him down again. Rather than the scripted malfunction, the technical issue was real and the hoist would not work even after the long delay. Finally giving up, the show proceeded but when it got to the point where Montagu was to be lifted, he made a crack about delaying the start of the show for so long just to have this still not work. The missing sight-gag didn’t really affect the performance and the ad-lib was almost funnier. The song ended on a somber note with a tribute to Glyndwr Michael, explaining how he finally was recognized (posthumously) for his contributions to the war with a plaque and his name added to the tombstone of “William Martin”.

This show was both silly fun to watch and historically enlightening. Despite the long wait and the slight sound issues, I really enjoyed watching this musical.

Theatre 2026: Son of a Preacherman

We first encountered Ins Choi when by pure luck we scored the last two tickets of the last performance of Kim’s Convenience at the 2011 Toronto Fringe Festival. We had bought a package of 10 tickets that needed to be redeemed at the theatre before each show.  We tried to arrive 30-60 minutes ahead of time for the shows that we wanted to see, to ensure there were still tickets left. We had not heard the hype for Kim’s Convenience or realized that every performance before this had sold out. But I misread the start time of the show which resulted in our arriving at the theatre over 90 minutes in advance. Because of that, we secured the last two tickets and were able to brag that we watched this play before it became nationally and then internationally famous, touring across the county and being turned into a TV series that eventually got picked up by Netflix.

Ins Choi’s latest endeavour is a 70-minute-long autobiographical play titled “Son of a Preacherman” which is basically a one-man show where he tells stories, sings songs and recites a poem while reflecting on his life and career. He is backed by a 3-person band, playing keyboard, percussions, and guitar, who sporadically join the scenes as other characters to fill out his narratives.

As conveyed by the play’s title, one of the main themes of this show deals with how despite there being multi-generations of preachers in his family including his grandfather, father, siblings and cousins, Choi had no desire to follow the family tradition. Instead, he wanted to be an actor and struggled to achieve this goal, against the express wishes of and pressure from his mother, and the depressing lack of substantial acting roles for Asians when he was starting out.

Son of a Preacherman was first performed in Vancouver in 2025, then moved to Ottawa in September 2026, before selling out in Toronto for its 3-week run (extended by a week due to popular demand). While the show was staged in regular theatres in the previous cities, in Toronto the venue was the Timothy Eaton Memorial Church. This was an inspired choice given the religious subject matters discussed. Within the church, the play was performed in the chancel with the band positioned in the apse at the back. The audience sat in the choir seats that flanked both sides of the altar while Ins strolled up and down in the space between. At times during the play when Ins would ask God or Jesus for guidance, he would look up at the magnificent stained-glass window (titled “Light of the World”) at the back of the apse, or out towards the back of the church where a light was shone.  Seating the audience right in the choir created a uniquely immersive and intimate experience for the attendees. It also allowed us to see the video displays that were projected high on either side of the apse, with the images adding context to Choi’s stories.

The show began with Ins singing a whimsical but irreverent song titled “Birkenstock Jesus” that seemed to set the light, comedic tone of what was to follow. It posed the question of how Jesus would react and be received in the 21st Century. Then Choi introduced himself as a preacher’s kid (PK) and listed a disparate bunch of celebrities that were also “PKs” (Denzel Washington … Vincent Van Gogh ... Alice Cooper). 

From there, he mused about not having many Asian role models growing up (let alone Korean ones), so he idolized the few that he could find. He sang a song about wishing he could be “Bruce Lee’s Best Friend”, while showing an image of the Chinese Kungfu master on the video display. He moved on to Japanese idols including pro wrestler Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat and skateboarder Christian Hosoi who invented the move called “Christ Air” where he spread his arms mimicking Christ on the cross. Choi cheekily even claimed to identify with Bert from Sesame Street because he was yellow-skinned with black hair. His point was that while growing up, he could not easily see himself on TV or movies although things started getting better with George Takei on Star Trek, Pat Morita on Karate Kid, and Michael Chang on the tennis circuit (Still no Koreans!).

But as he tried to pursue an acting career, he could only land stereotypical background roles like “Waiter #5” or “Asian Gangster #4”.  His experiences sounded identical to those described in the novel Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu. Choi concluded that the only way to act in a story that reflected his own heritage was to write one himself. This led to his writing Kim’s Convenience about a Korean family running a grocery store, including a part for himself as the ne’er-do-well son.

Son of a Preacherman then took a step back to reflect on the lives of Ins’ grandparents and parents as he described their journeys to becoming preachers and his own path to eschewing the “family business” (which he reluctantly worked at for years) to pursue his true passion. Ironically, he ended with an impassioned poem that felt like a sermon as he urged us all to not give up and “just start” to follow our dreams. This seemed to validate his father’s point that there is not that much difference between a preacher and an actor.

While Son of a Preacherman started out as a light comedy, it lost focus and changed tonally along the way, turning into a serious drama as he described the impacts of the Korean war on his family, and finally ending up in a preachy manifesto. Although the play was extremely short at only 70 minutes, for me it felt like I watched two separate plays. It seemed like Choi could not decide what type of play he wanted this to be. However, it was very cool to watch this show from the choir and if possible, all future productions of it should be staged in a church.

Theatre 2026: Dancer - A Musical in Ten Furlongs

I warily went to watch Dancer: A Musical in Ten Furlongs since I usually don’t like “musicals” that are mainly dance performances. Shows in this vein that come to mind include the second half of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical “Song and Dance”, Contact which features three stories told through contemporary, swing and classical dance, and “jukebox dance musicals” such as “Movin’ Out” which featured the catalogue of Billy Joel songs. I don’t think that dance conveys a story as well as listening to the lyrics of a song, and for me, the dance portions often feel like “filler”. 

This was especially true during the Golden Age of Musicals where a ballet “dream sequence” was often inserted into the middle of a show because it was the trendy thing to do and did little to advance the plot. Modern dance musicals do a much better job of actually using this art form to tell the story. The 2020 dance musical Message in a Bottle employs Sting/The Police songs to present a poignant tale of war, displacement, and the refugee crisis through the use of contemporary dance, breakdancing, acrobatics, street dance and ballet. Watching this show opened my eyes to how a well-done dance performance accompanied by the right songs could be a very effective narrative vehicle. Dancing to lyrics of songs as opposed to just a musical score helps to bridge the gap for me between a pure dance performance (which I still don’t enjoy as much) and a book musical (which I usually love).

Dancer: A Musical in Ten Furlongs follows the life and trajectory of Northern Dancer, the iconic Canadian thoroughbred racehorse who won the Kentucky Derby, The Preakness Stakes and the Queen’s Plate races in 1964 and was one of the most influential breeding stallions in the 20th Century. Owned and bred by Canadian business tycoon Edward P.Taylor, Northern Dancer was named as a tribute to his grandfather, the American racehorse Native Dancer.  Born late in the season, Northern Dancer was relatively small and extremely temperamental, resulting in his failure to be sold at Taylor’s annual horse auction. Instead, the feisty yearling stayed in Taylor’s own Windfields racing stables. Northern Dancer was trained by the legendary Argentine-born trainer Horatio Luro, nicknamed "The Grand Señor", who was known for his patience and knack at handling difficult, high-strung horses, and tended to by black stable hand Bill Brevard, who was thought to be the only person the horse truly trusted. Given Northern Dancer’s inauspicious beginnings, his triumphs and legacy make for the ultimate underdog (or in this case, “underhorse”) story.

Although this is officially a book musical with songs and dialogue to propel the plot, dance is a vital part of this show. Unlike the play Warhorse which uses a massive puppet to depict the titular horse, Northern Dancer and the other horses that he races against are all portrayed by skilled performers who embody the movements, spirit and emotions of the animals through contemporary dance mixed with ballet and modern dance moves. Luckily, the dancers are not costumed with hokey horse heads, possibly having learned a hard lesson from the musical Cats! Instead, the dancers representing the other horses wear sleek leotards in shades of beige, brown, tan and roan with matching-coloured socks. Accompanied by their flowing movements, these minimalistic costumes turned each lithe dancer into a graceful, elegant and powerful racehorse right before our eyes. By contrast, the short, stocky dancer perfectly cast to play Northern Dancer stomps onto the stage with hunched back and dressed in baggy shorts, a wife-beater tank top, and white socks (representing Northern Dancer's three white hoofs). The surly sneer on ther performer's face (which he maintains throughout the entire show until the bows) and his jerky, skittish movements effectively convey Northern Dancer’s reputed temperament.

The stage is set up with a curved racetrack ramp that is used to simulate laps for the choreographed races while the open area in the centre of the stage allows for straight-on views of a race as the horses gallop, leap and jockey for position. At the top of the ramp is a platform for the announcer who calls each race and also serves as the narrator of the story. A multi-media screen mounted on the back wall displays black-and-white video projections of archival photos and video of historic races.

Several of Northern Dancer’s races are recreated, leading up to his climactic Kentucky Derby victory. In one of these races, the famed jockey Willie Shoemaker is hired to ride Northern Dancer.  I thought it was quite hilarious that the actor who portrayed Shoemaker in this scene was huge and heavy set and would have crushed the horse in real life. I guess this actor was chosen because he could sing, as he struts around while belting a song that brags about of his riding prowess. Willie Shoemaker is famously known for turning down the chance to ride Northern Dancer in the Kentucky Derby, opting to ride the larger, more powerful California-bred colt Hill Rise instead. The performer who portrayed Hill Rise was a statuesque, muscular dancer dressed all in black who towered over all the other dancers. It was breathtaking every time he was on stage. At the start of the Kentucky Derby, dancers dressed as jockeys actually mounted each of the horse dancers, and this time, the performer playing Shoemaker was much smaller. The race for the Kentucky Derby came down to a neck-to-neck victory by Northern Dancer over the much larger Hill Rise, and the size difference between the two dancers portraying these horses really emphasized the David vs. Goliath battle.

The innovative choreography, designed to simulate the horses’ movements and to create the thrillingly intense and athletic horse races, turned out to be the highlight of the show. The actual songs and book of the musical paled in comparison. We found the songs to be forgettable and overshadowed by the dance elements. But even worse was the book which distorted history in an attempt to add unnecessary drama to the plot. The Trainer Luro was portrayed as a cartoonish, mustache-twirling villain who ordered Northern Dancer to be “whipped into submission” and forcing the horse to run on a cracked hoof.  In reality, Luro was firmly against any physical punishment and halted training to rest Northern Dancer. In the musical, it was the black groom Brevard who was portrayed as the saviour fighting for the welfare of the horse. The true-life racial indignities that Brevard suffered during this Jim Crow era was compared to the physical hardships endured by Northern Dancer. The other social issue that the book tried to highlight was the fight for equality by the feminist movement, as represented by the frustrations of E.P.Taylor’s wife Winnie. Much of the plot and many of the songs were devoted to these two social issues, which took focus away from Northern Dancer’s story. It felt like the book writer tried too hard to add gravitas and social relevance to the story, when just sticking to the facts of Northern Dancer’s feats would have been enough.

To my surprise, while I really enjoyed watching this musical, it was the dance and choreography which I loved and not the songs or the parts of the plot that did not relate to the horses.  Maybe I am starting to appreciate dance after all!