Operation Mincemeat: the next toast of Broadway?

It’s all, as is widely known, in the timing. Rupert Goold’s taut production of Peter Morgan’s political portrait of Russia, Patriots, was lauded at the Almeida in 2022 and again in its limited West End run in 2023. In April 2024, it opened on Broadway at the Ethel Barrymore and eight days later, Tony voters handed a Tony nomination for best actor to Michael Stuhlbarg as Boris Berezovsky but not, alas, to anyone else. Stuhlbarg ultimately lost out to Jeremy Strong in An Enemy of the People and seven days later, after a scant two months, Patriots was gone.

Clearly, a year ago, neither Tony voters nor New York audiences loved this crisp takedown of the power plays between a swaggering right-hand man and a monstrously self-aggrandising leader. There wasn’t even a Tony nomination for Will Keen, repeating his Olivier-winning, shape-shifting, lethal performance as Vladimir Putin. In the light of recent political upheaval, one wonders what might have happened had Patriots transferred this year?

But taking British shows to Broadway has always been tricky. For every Mary Poppins (2,619 Broadway performances), Matilda the Musical (1,554 performances), or Billy Elliot (1,312 performances), there’s a Groundhog Day (176) and The Woman in White (109). And if you thought London was financially risky, consider the fact that Broadway costs are about four times higher.

Take London’s tiny but mighty Operation Mincemeat, which has just announced its 14th extension at the West End’s 432-seat Fortune Theatre and whose original cast was in preview at Broadway’s 802-seat Golden Theatre until yesterday. According to producer Jon Thoday, London’s production was capitalised at £2 million while on Broadway, the same show with five actors and a band of four costs $11.5 million (or £8.87 million).

Moneywise, Mincemeat is not in the same league as the season’s other big hitters. Consider the most recent British musical import. A rare misstep from James Graham, the so-called “Elton John musical” Tammy Faye bypassed the West End and moved from the 325-seat Almeida to Broadway’s 1,743-seat Palace. According to Forbes magazine, it was capitalised at a staggering $25 million, every cent of which will have been lost, since within five days of the (horrible) reviews landing – “a disaster of biblical proportions” thundered the New York Post – it had announced its closure: the entire run lasted 29 performances.

That cost is small fry compared with the musical of the deliciously vicious Meryl Streep/Goldie Hawn movie Death Becomes Her. Reportedly the most expensive musical of the past five years, its initial capitalisation was $31.5 million. To recoup and turn a profit, it’s going to have to run and run – and then some.

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