Operation Stork is a comedy play written by Reid Kennedy and performed by Edinburgh-based amateur theatre group Leitheatre. Set in the 1960s, the play follows the goofy exploits of Private Campbell and his long-suffering superior Col. Crawford, with the action set entirely in the army barracks of a Scottish regiment. Private Campbell’s clumsy, fumbling passage through life is fraught with constant disasters, much to the displeasure of Col. Crawford, and matters are further complicated when Campbell’s pregnant wife gives birth to sextuplets in the C.O.’s office. Unsurprisingly, chaos ensues.
Operation Stork is fairly harmless stuff and it is clear from the outset what approach the play is offering: safe, risk-free humour with a silly, slapstick delivery. The goofiness is completely overdone, however, and much of the humour is just too corny to elicit a response from the audience. Billy Renfrew’s performance as the bumbling Campbell is an exercise in hammy comedic theatricality and, while he delivers some laughs, he could perhaps have gained a few more had he toned it down a bit. Elsewhere there were fluffed lines from the rest of the cast and, despite Philip Rainford and Fiona Robertson making a fairly humorous pairing as C.O. Crawford and his spirited wife, there aren’t really enough good lines in the script to provide them with much to sink their teeth into.
On the other hand, the set design is impressive, displaying a sharp eye for detail combined with a layout that allows for some decent prop-based gags while still leaving the stage feeling nice and spacious. There are also some good technical moments and stage trickery, all of which add to the on-stage anarchy and keep the contrived plot afloat – though even they can’t rescue the underwhelming conclusion.
The whole thing basically plays out like a safer version of Dad’s Army, with the same simpleton characters and stern, overburdened authority figure. That might have been a winning formula back in the late 60s, but these days it all just seems a bit dated.
