Trying to get a sense of all London theatre in one mad, weeklong dash- you can get to nine shows in seven days if you put your mind to it-is a fool's errand. Casting my mind back, I am left mainly with an impression of people surging noisily in and out of velvet rooms.
My far-and-away favorite production and a complete surprise to me was the musical "Operation Mincemeat," at the Fortune Theatre, written by the collective SpitLip: David Cumming, Felix Hagan, Natasha Hodgson, and Zoë Roberts. The title refers to an actual 1943 war maneuver, in which British intelligence disguised a corpse as a downed pilot from the Royal Marines, complete with a briefcase full of phony documents, and set him afloat to wash up on the Spanish coast. Sober-minded accounts of the caper-a book by Ben MacIntyre, a 2021 film-could only gesture to the endeavor's "They did what?" absurdity, but SpitLip has realized that nothing actually separates peak M.I.5 spycraft from amateur theatricals, both historically the province of jolly-oh, old-boys together Oxbridge types.
This story is from the June 26, 2023 edition of The New Yorker.
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This story is from the June 26, 2023 edition of The New Yorker.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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President for Sale - A survey of today's political ads.
On a mid-October Sunday not long ago sun high, wind cool-I was in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for a book festival, and I took a stroll. There were few people on the streets-like the population of a lot of capital cities, Harrisburg's swells on weekdays with lawyers and lobbyists and legislative staffers, and dwindles on the weekends. But, on the façades of small businesses and in the doorways of private homes, I could see evidence of political activity. Across from the sparkling Susquehanna River, there was a row of Democratic lawn signs: Malcolm Kenyatta for auditor general, Bob Casey for U.S. Senate, and, most important, in white letters atop a periwinkle not unlike that of the sky, Kamala Harris for President.
LIFE ADVICE WITH ANIMAL ANALOGIES
Go with the flow like a dead fish.
CONNOISSEUR OF CHAOS
The masterly musical as mblages of Charles Ives
BEAUTIFUL DREAMERS
How the Brothers Grimm sought to awaken a nation.
THE ARTIFICIAL STATE
A different kind of machine politics.
THE HONEST ISLAND GREG JACKSON
Craint did not know when he had come to the island or why he had come.
THE SHIPWRECK DETECTIVE
Nigel Pickford has spent a lifetime searching for sunken treasure-without leaving dry land.
THE HOME FRONT
Some Americans are preparing for a second civil war.
SYRIA'S EMPIRE OF SPEED
Bashar al-Assad's regime is now a narco-state reliant on sales of amphetamines.
TUCKER EVERLASTING
Trump's favorite pundit takes his show on the road.
