A new film and play about an allied intelligence operation resonate at a time when conflict and propaganda haunt Europe again
In a small subterranean office at the Admiralty, a cluster of men and women wait in a state of agonising anticipation. The Allied forces are landing in Sicily, and this small group of intelligence operatives has just bet the invasion – tens of thousands of lives – on a prankish piece of spycraft involving the body of a homeless man dressed as a pilot, carrying false news of an attack on Greece. It’s a second world war legend whose real story is no less strange than the myth that surrounds it – and something about it has clearly caught the zeitgeist.
On Tuesday a new British film revisits the story of one of the greatest single deceptions in warfare, with an all-star cast and an Oscar winner at the helm. Directed by John Madden, of Shakespeare in Love fame, Operation Mincemeat stars Colin Firth as Ewen Montagu, the former King’s Counsel who oversaw the extraordinary plan, alongside an ensemble of some of the nation’s best-loved actors, from Penelope Wilton and Simon Russell Beale to Jason Isaacs and Kelly Macdonald.
