Backstage with Operation Mincemeat: A conversation with David Cumming
By Anna Pile
Operation Mincemeat was the breakout musical success of 2023, travelling across the world from London Fringe stages to Broadway, eventually becoming the most well-received show on the West End, and has just commenced a tour of the UK. It was built on humble beginnings, however – a small group of comedic friends decided to create a musical together, eventually forming the creative collective SpitLip. I had the pleasure of interviewing one of its members, David Cumming: Tony-nominated and Olivier-winning writer and actor, born and raised in the North-East, just as the tour stops in his hometown of Newcastle.
After seven years of working on the show, how does it feel having Operation Mincemeat reaching the heights of not only the West End and Broadway, but then coming full circle to your home city on tour? Is it a different feeling from reaching those heights?
“Yes, it’s an interesting question. It is different in that I think the other [shows] were partially about my career and the show and taking it somewhere, and that being simultaneously about sharing the art with people because I was on that journey as well. And that felt like a journey outward…exploring the farthest reaches that the show could get me, and to an audience as far away as I could, whereas this feels more about giving it back to where I’m from. Returning is like [I’ve] proven my worth and I’m here to share the fruits of my labour, like, hey guys, I’m sorry I’ve been away, but I made this for you. This is what I’ve been up to all this time. I hope you like it.”
Do you have any specific memories of the Theatre Royal? (Where Operation Mincemeat is currently performing on tour)
“In fact, all of the theatres in Newcastle have played big parts in my life. Theatre Royal was where I first remember falling in love with big productions…back when the RSC used to always come to Newcastle. My mum would always make sure to bring me because she knew I loved theatre.”
“The Live Theatre, I started going there at the age of eleven, doing youth theatre every Thursday night… I worked with comedians, then learned to write and perform my own comedy characters. It was the first time I’d ever written and performed a joke and been like, oh, I can do both sides of this job.”
“And so I left, going to university, having already started to write for myself and perform, and it was all just different bits of theatre in Newcastle that kind of really made me see [it] not just as a hobby, but as something possibly working. But then the industry forces you forward to go south because that’s where you end up training”
“At least, that’s where you’re told you need to be. But it was at University I met the majority of my fellow writers. So I’m glad I didn’t go straight to drama school, but that doesn’t mean that path is right or wrong, just the path that took me. I’m glad I took [it] because [without it] this show wouldn’t exist.”
Regional theatre often finds its own identity because it is outside of London’s gravitational pull. What is one aspect of the theatre community here in the North East that you think is unique?
“Definitely a sense with the Live Theatre that the work being put on there was by Geordies for Geordies, but by Northeast writers, and they want to champion that – and rightly so. And I think there is a difference between northern humor and southern humor. I think northern humor is quicker, there’s a bit more banter involved, there’s a bit more silliness I think, [there’s] a general sense that you laugh at authority, and that no one is allowed to get too big a head because their mates will pick them down a peg or two and that’s not seen as a bad thing, but that’s seen as we’re all in it together.”
It is a travesty the way the funding of this country does all end up centering around London… I understand why it happens, but it isn’t right
“We are commonly at enemy with the South, I suppose, and that comes from years of being impoverished, being sent up North and the money never making its way up there. It is a travesty the way the funding of this country does all end up centering around London… I understand why it happens, but it isn’t right. It’s so much harder for theatres outside the centre, or the South, to keep making work but it’s important because you need an ecology, a pattern of voices. People need to see themselves in the work, and you can’t have all Northern characters written by someone who’s never left the M25, you just have to have writers all over the world, reflecting the audience back at them, and I think it’s important that we try and fight for it as much as we can.”
SpitLip’s success story with Operation Mincemeat is particularly inspiring for young creatives of the field. I know many Durham students who are taking their acting or writing talents to Durham, Camden, or Edinburgh Fringe this summer. Is there any advice you would give them about the process?
“I’d say, don’t get too caught up in the stress of it all, it’s very easy to feel like you’re failing, you’re not doing it right – The Fringe is where you go to make mistakes. Firstly, no show is perfect, and it takes a while, it’s an art form. Picasso wasn’t born being able to paint, he had to learn how to paint, and you have to learn how to make theatre and it’s very difficult to get right, it takes time.. and don’t worry about it, you need to be having fun as much as you can.
“Just try having fun with each other because ultimately, you’re gonna look back and be like those were the best days, they will have such a great time. So enjoy it, is what I’ll say.”
You said in an interview with Playbill that your favourite american guilty pleasure was acai bowls, what would you say is your guilty pleasure when you return to Newcastle? Is there anything you really missed while being away?
“When I got straight to Newcastle, which was yesterday, the first thing I did was go buy two sausage rolls immediately from a Newcastle Greggs. I’m sure they don’t taste different, but they do taste different. I really, really, really missed a sausage roll.”
Charles Chumley is quite different from you on the surface, did you find any moments of unexpected connection within the character?
“We sort of say as the writers [of Operation Mincemeat] that each of the main characters that we play – me, Natasha, and Zoe at least, [who’s characters are] Monty, Bevan, and Charles – are all kind of our secret, hidden souls.”
“I think there’s a certain kind of shyness and awkwardness that I remember having in my teens and in my twenties as I was growing,before my queer emancipation, and stepping out into the world. I can see that, his good-hearted drive, not that I’m a knight in shining armour, but doing the right thing matters more than the praise.”
Could you possibly make an exception and give the rights of the show to Durham early?
“I see… can I flout an internationally-agreed publishing deal, just slightly. I think the short answer is no. But the long answer is you can apply and you might become the first university to be the ones to do it and so, that would be cool.”
“We are very excited for people to get a chance to put on their own versions – it was literally created by a bunch of uni friends with a box of hats being like, is this a new character? Is this a swan? Like, that level of trying to work shit out in the back of a pub that let us be there for two hours for free. It’s a show made by those people, for those people.”
We have no doubt in our minds that at some point we want this show to be on in every university
“And so we’re very excited to give that show back to people and say run with it, see what you can do. I don’t exactly know when it will be allowed for Durham to do it, but we have no doubt in our minds that at some point we want this show to be on in every university, and all at the same time. We want a hundred productions of it at the Edinburgh festival, that’s the aim… that’s the real global domination we want.”
“I just can’t wait to see a 15-year-old girl at school find herself in the role of Monty and be like, ‘oh my god, I didn’t know I could be like this’ and the world is like ‘yeah, you can be anything you want babe, just go and live.’”
Speaking of how great the show is for actors to explore, with all the multi-rolling and gender-bent casting, just a few weeks ago there was a Durham student showcase called To All The Roles I’ve Never Played (Hild Bede Theatre), and Max Hildred, best known for his role as Danny Zuko in Grease just a few months prior, actually performed ‘Dear Bill’, one of the more emotionally heart-wrenching numbers of the show. How does it feel knowing such numbers and roles are allowing actors to explore more challenging roles, or roles outside of their typecast?
“I think for that song in particular as well, it’s very rare for audiences to see male presenting bodies sit in sadness and loss without moving straight to violence or self-violence or anger. And I think it’s very rare for male actors to be given a chance to just sit in grief and loss without them being like ‘and then I went and punched the wall!’ – they said no, you just stand and you’re lonely and that’s okay. Actually that speaks to, terrifyingly, a lot of men, who aren’t allowed to act out that emotion in society.”
“I think it speaks to something that [middle-aged men] are not actually allowed to admit that they feel, and they see a man pretending that, and they get to see it on that body – I think it does something. So I’m really glad he chose that song, and I’m very glad he got to experience that level of sadness. I’m glad I gave that to him.”
Talking to David Cumming, it is clear that while Operation Mincemeat is an incredible and accomplished musical, at its centre it is a love letter to all of those who share similar roots, emotions, and the joy of laughter. From youth theatre to the Broadway stage, David’s story is one of distance, but also a testament to how the influences of home never truly fade. And why would you want them to? After seven years, the musical is proof that great art doesn’t take you away from your origins, but brings you, and others, together through them.
Image credit: Phillip Romano Via Wikimedia Commons
