Dead in the Water was performed at The Star Inn, Guildford as part of the Guildford Fringe Festival
Dead in the Water was performed at The Back Room of the Star Inn, Guildford from 12-13 July, as part of Guildford Fringe Festival 2014, and will be presented at the Hen and Chickens Theatre Bar, Highbury, London on 12-16 and 19-23 August as part of The Camden Fringe.
Paul Tibbey and Mark Sims’ Dead in the Water tells the true story of Operation Mincemeat, an Allied deception of the Second World War that involved the planting of faked top secret documents on a dead body (redressed as an army officer) and cast adrift to wash up on the coast of Spain in 1943. This bold plan successfully convinced the Nazis that Greece and Sardinia rather than Sicily would be the target of the Allied attack in the Mediterranean, leading them to redistribute their troops and thereby averting many casualties.
Arriving at Guildford’s Star Inn following its Brighton premiere, Dead in the Water creatively revisits this fascinating episode through the medium of ‘musical tragi-comedy’. Previous retellings for film and television have tended to focus on the intelligence officers masterminding the operation, who included Ian Fleming (subsequently of James Bond fame) among their number. Attention in this show is instead shifted to the hitherto unsung hero of the hour, Glyndwr Michael, the deceased tramp who unknowingly set in motion the events that led to the Allies gaining control of Sicily.
Evidently the product of some research, Dead in the Water depicts Glyn, in his dying days in St Pancras hospital, in a dialogue of sorts with various characters – some real, others fictitious; some alive, others dead; some past, others future – through whom aspects of his story are enacted. Incorporating a fair dose of dark humour to counterpoint the tragic subject matter, the dialogue can be quite fast-paced at times, and a working knowledge of Operation Mincemeat comes in useful in unravelling the finer detail of the non-chronological complexities of the onstage action.
The three-strong cast of Dead in the Water all play multiple roles. Sophie Lewis Hughes admirably realises the demanding part of Hester, the ghostly narrator, as well as the hospital’s Sister. Lloyd Ryan Thomas is highly convincing in his performances as the dying (and dead) Glyn and his posthumous alter ego, Major Bill Martin. Francesca Peplow, as both Glyn’s nurse and Bill’s fictitious fiancée, Pam, is underused in relation to Hughes and Thomas, which seems a pity given the strength of her singing and acting. Each performer also assumes the guise of a number of ancillary characters, carefully differentiating them through regional accents: cockney for the soldiers, received pronunciation for the intelligence officers, Welsh for Glyn and his family.
Director Jemma Evelyn Gould’s choreography is sometimes elegant, sometimes quirky, though at moments it would benefit from a tighter execution. Tibbey’s dozen or so songs comprise a range of charming ballads, hymn-like melodies, and catchy tunes. One particularly poignant feature of the score is the use of one character singing in an undertone while lines of dialogue are spoken by others over the top. ‘Please Don’t Take Us to the Seaside’ is a standout number for its entertainment value, but also one that exemplifies the show’s darker, ironic side, being sung by soldiers to their sergeant about invasion on the Sicilian shores.
Dead in the Water presents an incredible tale in an engaging format, and, at 70 minutes without interval, it is a perfectly timed show that embraces the aphorism that less is sometimes more.
Christopher Wiley
* The Guildford Fringe Festival runs this year from 1-27 July.
* The Camden Fringe runs from 28 July-24 August 2014.
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