OPERATION MINCEMEAT to Make Australian Debut at Comedy Theatre

Double Olivier Award  and Tony Award  winning hit musical OPERATION MINCEMEAT will premiere at the Comedy Theatre, Melbourne in September 2027, before continuing its Australian Tour, with further cities to be announced. The search for the cast will commence early next year.

Based on a real 1943 World War II mission of the same name, OPERATION MINCEMEAT follows a team of British intelligence officers cooking up one of the most audacious deceptions in military history.  It’s 1943, and the Allied  Forces are on the ropes. Luckily, they’ve got a trick up their sleeve. Well, not up their sleeve, per se, but rather inside the pocket of a stolen corpse.

Equal  parts farce,  thriller,  and Ian Fleming-style  spy caper (with  an assist  from Mr. Fleming himself), OPERATION MINCEMEAT tells the wildly improbable and hilarious true story of the covert operation that turned the tide of WWII, as a team of eccentric spies plant a corpse loaded with fake invasion plans to fool the Nazis and protect the Allied invasion of Sicily.

Jon Thoday, Producer at Avalon, said: “It’s incredibly exciting to be invited to produce OPERATION MINCEMEAT in Australia and to be able to bring the show to a whole new audience.  From its beginnings in a 77-seat  London fringe  theatre,  the show  is now playing  simultaneously in the West End  and on Broadway,  with a world  tour underway,  so far spanning  the UK and North  America.  Australia  will be the fifth production of Operation Mincemeat and the next chapter in its extraordinary journey.”

OPERATION MINCEMEAT is now playing simultaneously in London, New York and across its world tour, with the UK leg well underway and the North American leg having just launched  with two sold-out  performances at the Providence  Performing  Arts Center, Rhode Island, on 20th September, welcoming a combined audience of 5,200 - the production’s biggest audience to date. The show’s international journey will continue  with Australia  as its fifth production,  before travelling  on to New Zealand, China and Mexico, taking Operation Mincemeat across four continents.

On Broadway, it landed four 2025 Tony Award® nominations, including Best Musical, taking home Best Featured Actor in a Musical for Jak Malone's turn as Hester Leggatt – a role that also won him the Olivier Award® in the same category. The production has also received nominations for Outstanding Production of a Musical at the Drama League Awards, Outstanding New Broadway Musical at the Outer Critics Circle Awards,  Best  Musical  at the BroadwayWorld  Theater Fans' Choice Awards,  and Favourite New Musical at the Broadway.com Audience Choice Awards.

It's come a long way from where it started: a 2019 fringe production at London's 77- seat New Diorama Theatre, dreamed up by the Olivier Award® winning and triple Tony Award® nominees SpitLip (David Cumming, Felix Hagan, Natasha Hodgson and Zoë Roberts) and directed  by Deputy Artistic Director at The National Theatre and Olivier  Award® nominated Robert  Hastie. From  sold-out runs  at Southwark Playhouse  and Riverside  Studios,  to the West End's Fortune  Theatre in 2023, to Broadway's historic Golden Theatre in February 2025, OPERATION  MINCEMEAT has built a cult hit into a global phenomenon – and it isn't slowing down.

That momentum is driven by one of theatre’s most devoted fan communities, affectionately known  as the “Mincefluencers”.  Their viral  TikTok and social  media following has helped fuel the show’s record-breaking  success,  spilling  out of the

theatre and into real life – from fans turning up for a surprise performance dressed as each of the show’s 80-plus characters, all played by just five actors, to 300 supporters flying  from London to New York for OPERATION  MINCEMEAT’s first Broadway preview, where they surprised the cast with a rendition of Sail On, Boys, the musical’s signature theme. Earlier this year, the show sold its 1 millionth ticket, celebrating with five Golden Tickets offering  fans unlimited  access to OPERATION  MINCEMEAT’s anywhere in the world, for life. One winner, Joseph Kavanaugh, has since visited the touring production more than 100 times.

Operation  Mincemeat is produced  in the West End,  on Broadway,  and on tour by Avalon (in association with SpitLip). The show was commissioned by New Diorama Theatre,  co-commissioned  by The Lowry, and also supported  by the Rhinebeck Writers Retreat.