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Operation Mincemeat is a British musical based on a totally ludicrous but true story about a oddball plan by MI5 in WWII to trick the Germans into thinking Britain planned to invade Greece, when the real target was Sicily. At the heart of the plan was the use of the dead body of a tramp, designed to be a British officer complete with military plans, official documents and even a love letter from his fake girlfriend. Among the intelligence team was a young officer named Ian Fleming, who of course went on to write the James Bon novels. It’s been adapted into a couple of very good movies, The Man Who Never Was, and most recently Operation Mincemeat with Colin Firth and Matthew Madfadyen. And in 2023, a lively, rambunctious comedy musical opened on the West End, where it was nominated for six Olivier Awards, winning two, including Best Musical. It’s now on Broadway, where got four Tony nominations, including Best Musical, winning for Best Supporting Actor. The casting mix-and-matches genders, with some women playing male character, and several of the mean playing women. My pal, the inveterate Chris Dunn, saw the show in New York, raved about it, and sent me a link to one particular song which is what I want to post here. It was really wonderful, but to put it in a fuller context, I’m going to start with what I think is the opening number. They performed it at both the Olivier and Tony Award telecasts, and it's wildly energetic and, from what I know about the show, is the sensibility of the evening. I’ll add that the song goes very fast, so I’ve never caught most of the words, though you can put on the Closed Captioning option (though it's a bit hard to keep up). This brings us to the song in question. It comes in the story when British intelligence realizes they need to humanize the dead body more. And decide to include a love letter. The first attempts don’t go well. That’s when one of the women officials involved tells a story about herself and a young love she lost in WWI. The story is so moving that she’s convinced to write it as the fake letter. And this is that song. Playing the young woman is Jak Malone – who won both the Olivier and Tony Awards as Best Supporting Actor. (And yes, the show overlaps genders in its casting.) Chris says that it was this number specifically that won Malone the award, that it was so emotional. Comments on YouTube with the video all say the same thing, that in the midst of this boisterous comedy, the song almost comes out of nowhere and overwhelms the audience with its emotion. This, then, is “Dear Bill”.
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I swear, yes, this is true.  And in response --  P.S. As someone else responded on Twitter -- "Did we win?" And another person replied -- "You can say Merry Protein again." And by the way, was the White House not able to find a better picture of Robert Kennedy, Junior? (At least, I assume that's Robert Kennedy, Junior.) Not that I want to write a third-in-a-row article about the ICE shooting in Minneapolis, but it's a galling story that won't go away. And in some way gets worse, as MAGOPs are twisting themselves in Gordian knots to defend the indefensible, to defend shooting someone because the police wanted to. Just the other day, VP "JD Vance" posted a video that he insisted proved murdering Renee Good was justified -- which is a ghoulish concept from anyone, but most especially from the U.S. vice president -- yet worse, the video showed that everything he was saying was wrong! In clear, easy-to-see video. Footage that, if this video was ever shown in court, would likely get the ICE agent sentenced to prison. And MAGA supporters keep insisting that being an "activist" (never mind that there's no evidence that Renee Good was an "activist, and even if she was, being an "activist" is not actually a crime...let alone even wrong!) made murder justifiable. But rather than write another long article, I thought I'd turn today's column over to three short videos from eminent speakers, and let them make compelling statements. The first if from Tim Miller of The Bulwark, and a regular expert analyst on MS NOW, who breaks down that video from "JD Vance," and shreds it with video reality. Next we have Jon Favreau, former director of speechwriting for President Barack Obama and co-host of Pod Save America, who in one minute explains why no one, even ICE agents, get to shoot someone they think is against them. And finally, we have Jason Kander, the former Secretary of State of Missouri, who I've written about periodically here, him being the nephew of my friend John Kander (who is not the Broadway composer of Cabaret and Chicago, but his nephew). He reads a response from a friend of his, a police officer, about his reaction to the shooting, from the perspective of a person experience that was significantly worse. It's a damning story. On this week’s Naked Lunch podcast, co-hosts Phil Rosenthal and David Wild welcome the recording and touring artist, actor, author and, as they write, “enduring sex symbol Rick Springfield to a Naked Lunch that's been too-long delayed. Enjoy great stories, Rick's remarkable life in music, growing up Down Under, coming to L.A., acting with Meryl Streep, being confused with Bruce Springsteen, as well as Rick's recently released "Big Hits 2: Rick Springfield's Greatest Hits, Vol. 2" and this summer's "I Want My 80s Tour." On this week’s episode of 3rd & Fairfax, the official podcast of the Writers Guild of America, the guests are screenwriters Winnie Holzman & Dana Fox who talk about collaborating on the hit film Wicked: For Good, the creative challenges adapting musicals from stage to screen, and much more. Side Note: During the 2008 Writers Guild strike, on a picket line, I happened to run into Winnie Holzman. I wanted to mention to her that back in my dark days of doing movie PR I had written the press kit for a movie she’d been the screenwriter for, ‘Til There Was You. And also to congratulate her on writing the libretto for the huge hit Broadway musical of Wicked, then in its fifth year in New York. She was just extremely warm and kind and thoughtful – and wanted more to talk about me and the project I was then working on, which was really only in the “trying to sell” stage, than talk about herself, Wicked and the breadth of all her work (that included writing many episodes for the series Thirtysomething and creating the series My So-Called Life, among many other things). Her friendliness has always stuck with me. By the way, she’s done a small bit of acting, but without question what she’s been most seen in is the movie Jerry Maguire, where she plays one of the support group of divorced ladies who regularly meet in Rene Zellwegger’s sister’s house. From the archives. This week's contestant is Chuck Romportl from Hopkins, Minnesota. I was able to get the hidden song pretty quickly. The composer style, though, is in that area of which I generally have to toss a coin, and didn't get it. And in fairness, it's pretty tough. To my shock, the contestant actually guessed the composer style right off -- but didn't get the hidden song. Only on a second go-round, where pianist Bruce Adolphe brought the song out more, did he guess correctly. |
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. 
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