“Women. It’s good stuff.”

By Alice Groth

Picture the scene. It’s 1943, and Britain are losing the war. Luckily, MI5 has a brilliant idea: dress up a corpse as a British pilot, plant fake intelligence documents on him, and ensure the body falls into German hands.

This might not sound like the traditional subject matter for a musical. But SpitLip’s Operation Mincemeat, a fast-paced gender-bending romp of a show, has been sweeping up acclaim, awards, and audience’s hearts ever since its first outing in 2019. Based on the real historical operation of the same name, the show has been running in London since 2023, recently marked a year on Broadway and its first UK tour opened in Salford in February.

Most of the key names associated with the historical Operation Mincemeat are men: Ewen Montagu, Charles Cholmondeley, John Bevan. But the musical also stresses the crucial work contributed by the women on the team. A whole persona had to be created for the corpse, including a name, wallet litter and a sweetheart back home. A photograph of his “fiancé”, Pam, was planted inside his wallet. The woman in the photo was Jean Leslie, who worked in the MI5 department that coordinated the mission. To complete the identity of the fake pilot, a love letter was also included in his briefcase, signed by “Pam” but in fact composed by Hester Leggatt, head of the department typing pool.

For a moment, the plot pauses to foreground Hester’s experience with a focus not often offered to middle-aged female characters

In the musical Operation Mincemeat, Hester Leggatt originally appears to be a strict, buttoned-up spinster who strikes fear in the hearts of her subordinates. However, in the course of the show, another side to her emerges. The ballad “Dear Bill” begins with her instructing the team how to plausibly fake a love letter to an absent soldier sweetheart. By the end of the song, it’s all too clear why Hester can produce a believable fake letter: she’s drawing on her own experience of love and loss in the First World War, 25 years earlier. It’s a beautiful moment, a glimpse of the deep pain that the character has been through, amidst the fast-paced and often slapstick atmosphere of the rest of the show. For a moment, the plot pauses to foreground Hester’s experience with a focus not often offered to middle-aged female characters. 

The version of Hester that appears in the show is fictionalised, but the character is based on a real woman. Photos of the real historical figures that appear in the show were printed in its original programme. But Hester’s page didn’t have a photograph. This wasn’t due to lack of trying; there simply wasn’t enough information about her available. She seemed to have disappeared from the record. A group of fans of the show decided to change this, embarking on a research trail that took them up and down the country, through archives, databases and records, searching for the real woman who had helped Britain win the war. Their efforts culminated in the discovery that her name had been misspelled in the records — “Leggett”, not “Leggatt”. Suddenly, she became visible again. The fans even tracked down a photo of her, which was added to the second edition of the programme.

In Act 2 of the show, Jean and Hester sing ‘Useful’, a duet that explores Jean’s frustration at being undervalued by the men in the team. She dreams of one day being acknowledged for her work on the operation, gently inviting Hester to do the same. She suggests flowers, statues and medal ceremonies; Hester responds tentatively, “perhaps just a small plaque”. In the song, the two women work through their frustration at being overlooked and silenced by the male-dominated department. They find solace in the fact that even though their work is not appreciated by their colleagues, “what matters is that we did something useful.”

Tasteful and small, it reads: for Hester, who served her nation

And for a long time, their own knowledge of this work seemed to be the only acknowledgement they would get. Hester’s role in the mission was not known for years, and she herself seemed to have disappeared from the historical record. But now, if you visit the Fortune Theatre, the musical’s West End home, you’ll see a plaque in the lobby. Tasteful and small, it reads: for Hester, who served her nation.

Operation Mincemeat celebrates and lifts up the voices of Jean, Hester and all the women they represent; women who worked behind the scenes, all too often talked over and silenced by history. Jean and Hester’s work was key to the success of the operation, adding substance to the narrative that ultimately fooled the Nazis. Now, thanks to the musical and its fans, that work is being recognised.

As Ewen Montagu would put it: “Women. It’s good stuff, isn’t it? It’s just nice.”

Operation Mincemeat is currently touring the UK and is booking at London’s Fortune Theatre until 20th February 2027.

Illustration: Atharva Kamboj