Edinburgh Fringe 2025
Operation Blank
GG Well Played Productions
Genre: Absurd Theatre, Comedic, New Writing, Solo Performance
Venue: TheSpace
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
Clever staging plus imaginative and hilarious writing make this absurdist satire a pleasure to watch. Though its late turn toward existential drama doesn’t fully succeed, it’s still an enjoyable hour from a promising emerging talent.
Review
We’ve all had that Microsoft Teams experience, right? You’re on the video call with the PM, who’s in his underwear and unnervingly obsessed with the ergonomic qualities of your seating, plus a shirtless jock, and a laid-back dude in a Hawaiian shirt. Oh, and an angelic potato.
If you haven’t, that’s okay: writer/performer George Grant cues everyone in within the first few minutes that nothing in Operation Blank is to be taken as naturalistic. Which is a bit of a relief, considering that the call is an emergency virtual meeting after an atomic bomb has detonated in Copenhagen. No one in the British government except for one junior staffer seems to think a response plan is necessary; most of the attendees are more interested in joking about “burnt Danishes” and “Copenha-gone”; and a recurring motif is that no one is quite certain where exactly the Danish capital actually is.
Two narratives unfold within this mostly manic hour of a solo(-ish) performance: the main story is giddy, propulsive, gag-laden, and thoroughly enjoyable. It meanders a bit through some under-developed themes (the emptiness of leadership, the ills of social media and populism, the obsession with branding – among many others!) and sometimes the humour is a bit broad, but the pace is so madcap that a clever joke swiftly replaces any that misfire.
The staging is spare: just a (very non-ergonomic, and apparently unintentionally flimsy) chair and desk, plus screen where the other manifestations of Grant appear on the Teams call, and this reinforces the immediacy of situation and helps drive the suspense forward without distractions. Grant’s timing is simply genius: he interacts with the recording of himself as other characters in a way that never challenges the credibility of the sustained illusion of a video call.
The real difficulty comes about when the second narrative moves to the foreground. Grant has adequately foreshadowed its appearance, but the shift from satire to serious existential drama is abrupt and unsupported by the foundation set down by the comedic beginning and middle. Grant-as-junior-staffer is not a fleshed-out dramatic character, which robs the climax of the emotional payload it ought to deploy when the story stops telling jokes and starts asking big questions.
Despite this, Operation Blank is bold new writing with verve and originality. If it feels slightly shy of a final draft, it is still exceptionally funny, engaging, and provocative, and very much worth a viewing.
