Interview: 'OPERATION MINCEMEAT is a Team Sport': Actor Madeleine Jackson-Smith on Joining the Cast

Since opening nearly two years ago in the West End, Operation Mincemeat has been taking the world by storm, receiving dozens of five-star reviews, earning two Olivier Awards in 2024 and even opening on Broadway this year. The show, written by SpitLip (David Cumming, Felix Hagan, Natasha Hodgson and Zoë Roberts) is based on the true story of MI5’s deception operation of the same name, in which the British used a disguised corpse to trick the Nazis into thinking the Allied Forces were invading Sardinia instead of Sicily.

Recently, we had the chance to chat with Madeleine Jackson-Smith, who plays Jean Leslie & Others in the current cast of Operation Mincemeat. We discussed how she first got into theatre, what it has been like joining the show and her recent debut as Ewen Montagu.

How did you first get started in the world of theatre?

All too predictably. As far as I can recall, my parents sent me to a weekend theatre group starting from when I was about five, most likely to stop me from committing more acts of violence against my two younger brothers. I remember having tantrums in the car as it interrupted my Sunday lie-ins – plus ça change.

My first professional theatre role was in the chorus of the touring production of Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at the Oxford New Theatre when I was about seven. I was the youngest person in the cast, which the creative team probably regretted when I forgot that there was an audience in front of me and started blowing raspberries from my seat onstage during “Close Every Door.”

What made you want to be a part of Operation Mincemeat?

In retrospect, it feels like one of those weird, fateful connections. I was very aware of the show when it opened at the Fortune in spring 2023, though I hadn’t listened to the soundtrack. That summer, I went to the Edinburgh Fringe with two musicals by my friend Joe Venable – On Your Bike and Jingle Street – both quirky, offbeat comedies that required a great deal of multi-roling from a four-person cast and a great deal of suspension of disbelief on the part of the audience. I believe “bonkers but charming” was the review quote we used on our posters.

Then in November 2023 I won the ticket lottery and saw Operation Mincemeat with my friend Aisha. I remember leaving and thinking “I wish I’d never watched that!” Not only was the show itself brilliant, but it aligned so directly with my own experience and ambitions, I knew that yearning to be in it was going to ruin my life. I recognised the same cheerful disregard for the theatrical status quo that I saw in Edinburgh, where characters transcended age, gender and casting type, where the leading man was played by a woman and the leading lady doubled as an elderly Welsh attaché called Steve. Spitlip had taken the joy and chaos of fringe theatre, packaged it into a bloody good musical and snuck it right into the heart of the West End. I couldn’t believe they’d pulled it off and I wanted in.

For those unfamiliar with the show, can you tell us a bit about it and the role you play of Jean Leslie?

Operation Mincemeat  - the historical event - is an MI5 deception strategy from World War Two. Operation Mincemeat - the musical - is a breathless, bonkers retelling of this story with humour, heart and hats cranked up to eleven. I play a fictionalised version of Jean Leslie, a real-life MI5 secretary who played a key role in the operation in 1943. In our version, she’s a twenty-year-old new recruit to the MI5 typing pool who piques the interest of the public-school-educated old guard with her fierce intelligence and insight. Young and hungry to disrupt the system, she grapples with the limitations placed on her by an archaic society and the whims of her blustering superiors. Most days it’s not too hard to get into character.

 What has it been like joining the show as a new cast member?

I had a bit of an atypical journey towards joining the show full-time. First I was a “rehearsal swing” for the rehearsals ahead of the May 2024 cast change. Brilliant Claire(-Marie Hall) was continuing in the role of Jean Leslie, but it would have been ridiculous to have her rehearse in with the new cast whilst doing eight shows a week. So I took a six-week hiatus from my studies on the MA Musical Theatre course at the Royal Academy of Music and learned Jean alongside the other incoming cast members. I got to know the whole team really well during this time, and it was an odd feeling participating in the first cover run knowing that it was the end of my journey with the show for the foreseeable future whilst everyone else’s tenure was just beginning.

But I left in May, completed my MA, got a couple of survival jobs and tried to be normal about the prospect of returning to the show someday. This failed, by the way, so it was probably a good thing for everyone that at the end of September I got the call about joining as Jean full-time! Coming back felt like returning home. It was lucky that through rehearsals, I’d already got to know my fellow cast members and how they worked. But still, the show is such a specific puzzle that even the tiniest change of blocking or prop handling can have massive repercussions, and I’m so grateful to everyone onstage and off for being so flexible as we worked out how our unique version of the show was going to run with me in the mix.

What was it like making your debut as Ewen Montagu?

Absolutely terrifying! We’d been rehearsing since the beginning of January with our co-associate director Amy Milburn and Charlotte Hanna-Williams, the fantastic cover Jean. I’d done roughly 75 shows as Jean by this point, but Ewen Montagu is a completely different challenge. This is particularly because so much of his character relies on his ability to charm the audience. One piece of direction I received early on was to think of him as “the coolest kid in sixth form” – an astronomical departure from my own lived experience. So I was bricking it.

It was a two-show day, so I remember performing as Jean Leslie in the matinée and using all of my strength not to study everything Holly (Sumpton, who plays Ewen Montagu) was doing before I attempted it myself in a couple of hours. I remember being unable to do anything during the dinner break apart from gently rock back and forth in a Pret a Manger clutching a soup. I remember the curtain going up at the beginning of act one and then everything pretty much went black. I can only recall two things after that: the first is that the rest of the cast were fantastic. Operation Mincemeat is a team sport and I couldn’t have done it without their support and encouragement, and willingness to pick up my slack and cover the occasional phone mishap. The second is that we had an absolutely fantastic audience in, which is the dream for anyone playing Monty. They were so on board from the very beginning, and so ready to laugh and invest in every beat of the story. I’m very grateful for that, and I hope I didn’t let that good faith go to waste.

The reception at the stage door afterwards was ridiculous. Operation Mincemeat’s fans are on another level – they dedicate so much of their time and talent to making everyone in the cast feel welcome and supported. The night I debuted as Monty happened to be the night that Chris Wiegand, Stage Editor for The Guardian, was writing an article on fans at the stage door at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane opposite, where Tom Hiddleston and Hayley Atwell are starring in Much Ado About Nothing. The article contains a single sentence about how the cheers at the Fortune Theatre stage door that night drowned out the cheers at the Drury Lane. That is a very important sentence to me. 

Do you have a favourite song and/or moment from the show?

One of the central relationships of the show is between my character, Jean Leslie, and Hester Leggatt, an older, more senior secretary at MI5. Two women who have found themselves in the thick of this patriarchal boys’ club and are forced to reckon with their desire to make a difference and the limited means at their disposal to do so. Jean wants to shout the place down, rip the system apart (as the song goes), whereas Hester has lasted years in her role and become a trusted colleague of some senior figures through remaining rule-abiding and unobtrusive, quietly allowing the system to work for her.

Neither of these approaches are ideal, and both are undermined by era’s and the institution’s shameful treatment of women. This relationship comes to a head in the middle of act two, where the two women have a genuine discussion about their conflicting approaches, and a duet, “Useful.” As a performer, sharing the scene and song with Christian (Andrews) and Jonty (Peach), who play Hester, is a privilege. Scenes that don’t involve all five of us cast members are few and far between, and it’s a wonderful, intimate opportunity to breathe and connect with another actor. For the audience, I hope it’s a small moment of respite from the chaos and a chance to reflect on the millions of unsung heroes behind all these historical events and the ones unfolding now – the ones who weren’t white men, and so didn’t quite make the history books.

 On a less genuine note, I love the moment later on in the finale, where Hester interrupts Jean just before she’s about to drop a very anachronistic swear word on the audience. One of these days I’ll get it in.

What do you hope audiences take away from Operation Mincemeat?

I hope they leave invigorated by the limitless possibilities that are created by supporting fringe and grassroots theatre. There are thousands of people creating art as moving, hilarious and utterly unique as Operation Mincemeat, and to ensure the success and longevity of our theatre industry, that art needs to find its audience. I encourage anyone who enjoyed our show to be curious: investigate the programming of your local theatres and arts centres; attend scratch nights in pub attics; donate to theatres, charity organisations, GoFundMe campaigns; mooch around an arts festival in an unfamiliar town; keep your ear to the ground on social media and loudly proclaim your support for your favourite artists.

The people behind your next favourite musical are already out there, and without sufficient support from the theatre-going population, our vibrant artistic and cultural output risks dwindling even further, leaving commercial theatre in the hands of fewer, wealthier individuals. Take risks – the people putting on these fringe productions certainly are.

How would you describe Operation Mincemeat in one word? 

Home.

Operation Mincemeat is currently at the Fortune Theatre until 15th November 2025, tickets on sale now at www.operationmincemeat.com 

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