The Best Luxury and Culture of the Year, According to Our Experts

OPERATION MINCEMEATTo divert attention from the Allies’ planned July 1943 invasion of Sicily, MI5 dressed up an anonymous corpse as a military captain and washed it ashore in Spain with a briefcase of fake plans. This stranger-than-fiction story is the basis for a delightful musical on London’s West End, led by Natasha Hodgson in a gender-swapped role as intelligence officer Ewen Montagu. The show whipsaws between pastiche and pathos and, like the actual operation, might seem too far-fetched to work—until it ends up a roaring success.