Former Chesterfield student plays principal role in touring production of multi award-winning Operation Mincemeat
An actress who cut her teeth at a Derbyshire performance arts school is playing a principal role in a touring musical which made West End history as the best reviewed show and has won multiple awards.
Holly Sumpton is cast as Ewen Montagu in Operation Mincemeat – a part she is very familiar with having played the character in the West End.
Operation Mincemeat is a true story and the character which Holly plays was a British Naval intelligence officer, judge and author who masterminded a successful deception in the Second World War, devising a plan to use a corpse carrying false documents to trick Hitler into believing the Allies would invade Greece rather than Sicily.
Holly grew up in Chesterfield and is a former student of St Mary’s RC High School. As a teenager, she studied performance arts at Chesterfield Studios and furthered her education in musical theatre at the prestigious Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.
Operation Mincemeat won two Olivier Awards and a Tony Award and since Since premiering in London in 2019 has been nominated for 67 awards and won 25. It is describe as part farce,trhiller and Ian Felming-style spy caper (with an assist from Mr Fleming himself.
The musical – which is touring to Sheffield Lyceum Theatre from April 13-25 – is directed by Robert Hastie, former Artistic Director of Sheffield Theatres.
Tickets can be booked through the box office in person, over the phone on 0114 249 6000, or at www.sheffieldtheatres.co.uk.
Operation Mincemeat is running simultaneously in London and New York, with the West End production at the Fortune Theatre extended for a seventeenth time through September 27, 2026 at the Broadway production now extended for a fifth time, running through April 26, 2026.