How a musical’s fandom tracked down a WWII secretary who turned the tide of history

Operation Mincemeat tells the story of how a clever ploy helped win the war – but the show’s fans have uncovered an even more interesting story, writes Greg Callus

Somehow, this absurd story of immense historical import converts almost naturally into a high-speed farce (Spitlip Theatre Company)

Picture the scene. You’re the son of the late Archbishop of York, and constables have discovered you in Hyde Park “violating public decency” with one “Miss Thelma de Lava”. You give a fake name. Sadly this doesn’t work, because just four years ago you were the assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, recognised by every copper in London. Bribery fails too, so at trial you run the doomed defence that you were reporting for a book about vice.

Sir Basil Thomson fell from considerable grace when unsurprisingly found guilty in 1926. He had quit Oxford to train as a farmer in Iowa, improbably learnt Fijian to become the colonial prime minister of Tonga, was a barrister and prison governor, before taking over domestic intelligence at the Met’s special branch. He interrogated Mata Hari, and ran counter-espionage operations against Irish and Indian nationalists. Yet his criminal conviction made him a pariah, leading him to start writing detective stories in that genre’s golden age.