one4review | On 18, Aug 2026

George Grant’s Operation Blank is an ambitious piece of absurdist comedy that takes the familiar frustrations of the modern workplace meeting and places them against the rather more pressing backdrop of an international catastrophe.

A junior government minister finds himself in a Microsoft Teams meeting following an atomic bomb being dropped on Copenhagen. You might expect the assembled politicians and advisers to be desperately trying to work out how to respond. Instead, the Prime Minister is remarkably relaxed, while those around him are distracted by their own concerns, repeatedly interrupting and generally failing to grasp the enormity of what is happening.

The contrast is the joke, and Grant pushes it to deliberately ridiculous lengths. The production’s most successful device is the combination of Grant performing live while the other characters appear on screen, all played by him. It is a clever piece of theatrical technology and requires considerable precision from the performer. The occasional technical failure is even incorporated into the action, with one key adviser apparently unable to contribute because he is stuck on mute.

Grant is a talented performer, and there is plenty to admire in the execution. The increasingly chaotic video call effectively captures the absurdity of modern online meetings, where interruptions, technical problems and people talking at cross purposes can make even relatively straightforward discussions seem impossible.

The deliberately silly nature of the piece won’t appeal to everyone, and there were moments when I felt the central joke was being stretched a little. But that is very much part of Grant’s intention, and there are some genuinely funny moments amid the escalating chaos.

Having enjoyed Grant’s later In the Cold Light, I was perhaps expecting something slightly different, but there is plenty to admire here. An inventive, well-performed and technically clever piece of absurdist comedy, with a great central concept and some very good comic moments. I would recommend catching this and helping to boost Grant’s early morning audiences for the rest of the run.

****

Reviewed by Howard
Fleming Theatre at theSpace @ Surgeons’ Hall

Until 29th August (not 23rd)