Arts & Culture

Operation Mincemeat

at Southwark Playhouse

Review by Susan Isaacs Arts and Restaurant critic

The year is 1943 and the war is not looking good for Britain.

Can a team of MI6 naval intelligence officers in braces defeat Hitler, by floating a stolen corpse, carrying deliberately misleading documents as a decoy, off the coast of Spain? They call it Operation Mincemeat.

In this brilliantly energetic,

memorably tuneful, fast moving musical, of course they can. The book is written by some of the cast members, known as SpitLip, and their abundant enthusiasm, and connection with their creation, is infectious.

From the moment the cast leapt onto the stage, performing a melodic, beautifully synchronised introduction, they had the audience with them, cheering wildly. I have never seen such a bond between the audience and the cast. Natasha Hodgson, as Ewen Montagu, and David Cumming as Charles Cholmondely are two naval intelligence mavericks who come up with a plan to fool Hitler.

Natasha has the clipped vowels of a public school boy born to rule, and though very slight in stature, completely commands the stage as a toff. David Cumming is a nerd with bulging eyes and a moustache. He has an obsession with insects, and spends quite some time pondering, amongst other things, whether a newt has a penis.

Claire-Marie Hall is Jean Leslie, who aspires to do grander things than make the tea. She makes a dramatic transition from mousy tea girl, dressed in white shirt and tweed trousers, to a vamp in black suspenders and bare thighs, singing the beautifully tuneful Let Me Die in Velvet. Jak Malone, as Hester Leggett, and as a sea Captain, moves seamlessly from gender to gender without changing an item of clothing. The characters have to invent a life story for the corpse of an unidentified tramp. Jak, sings a very moving ballad when he has to play the invented girlfriend of this corpse writing a letter to her boyfriend, who has suddenly disappeared off to fight a war. There are some very effective devices which set us firmly in the period of the end of the Second World War. The Bakelite telephones, plummy accents, suits with braces, and black and white costumes, give the effect of a black and white film. Bond creator, Ian Fleming, makes an appears in the naval intelligence offices, and a fishing crew use wooden chairs to give the effect of loading cargo on a ship. The orchestra, squeezed into a tight space to the left the of Southwark Playhouse stage, give a spirited performance.

The Southwark Playhouse with its industrial chic, railway side location , and unadorned electric lights, is the ideal setting for this musical set in the 1940’s It evokes the spirit of wartime Britain, before you even see the performance. Because of the pandemic, it took a vast amount of determination from the cast and production team to bring this delightful, spirited musical, to the stage. Do support them. They have done a wonderful job.

Roof-top tubs and eclectic images at the Bermondsey Square Hotel

By Susan Isaacs Arts and Restaurant critic

The green astroturf bounces

under our feet as we sit sipping Prosecco on our own private terrace and gaze out onto one of London’s trendiest squares. The Shard points to the sky in the distance, and we face independent cinema Kino, and an art display from Vitrine Art Gallery. A multitude of trendy restaurants are just minutes away, French, Spanish, Italian, you name it. And on Friday mornings from 6am -2pm the square is abuzz with a worldfamous antiques market.

We are the privileged guests at Bermondsey Square Hotel, a boutique hotel with delightful eclectic touches, built and born in 2009, at the very same time as Bermondsey Square itself. Many of the bedrooms in the hotel face onto the square.

The colourful names give personality to the suites in the hotel. Lucy is decorated in black and boasts its very own hot tub. Ruby is Scarlet Red; Lily is White, and Jude is Pink. Our own suite is on a floor named after local streets, Bricklayers, Snowsfield, Leathermarket, and Tylers, and there are some delightful unforgettable touches. The powerful shower strips the city air off you. The corridor on each floor has vast striking photos, a man in braces smoking against a wall, the face of a woman in black and white with scarlet lips. For visitors there is no language barrier. The two lavatory doors are decorated respectively with black bra and underpants in case you should wonder which is which.

The rooms have been very carefully designed to contain everything you could need for a stay in the City, dental kits, dressing gowns, shavers, slippers, ironing boards, hair dryers, shoe kits, tea-making facilities. And there are enough power sockets to satisfy an army of City workers, or even a family with device mad children. And one of the nicest things about the hotel, are the numerous comfortable seats on ground level outside looking into the square, a calm place to sit and unwind.

The staff are helpful and enthusiastic. Loredana, who is the Housekeeping Manager, explains how they have coped with all the extra restrictions under covid, training staff and keeping abreast of everything in such difficult circumstances. She explains to me how the guests have changed during the pandemic. Whereas previously the majority of people were guests from the corporates, now during the week there are people coming from all over the UK, to sample the delights of foodie Bermondsey, with Borough Market, the Globe theatre, and the Tate Modern. Kunal, the Deputy General Manager tells us about how the hotel was first designed, and how it has adapted. The buffet breakfast was fun and relaxed, but the best moment for me was when we were shown the conference room. There was a whiteboard and chairs laid out conference style, and I was told it could double as a bedroom for overnight guests. I just could not figure out where the bed was. But then Loredana pointed a remote control at a series of shelves, and like an ejector seat in a James Bond movie, an immaculate bed slid out, fully made up and ready to go. That really is the essence of the hotel. Everything is fully made up and ready to go. I hope you have the opportunity to sample its delights.