The Wick Theatre Company, following successful staging of Allo Allo and The Darling Buds of May, have once again raided television's cupboard of sitcom and created stage versions of two more popular programmes.

It has to be said that the evening is a show of two halves and is not the total success that is expected from this usually reliable company.

It is the dated Are You Being Served which disappoints, with a very weak script which receives an extremely pedestrian production.

With few exceptions the acting fails to give life to the familiar characters and they remain two-dimensional caricatures. Their antics involving preparations for a staff holiday to Spain and the promotion of German goods in the store draw amused smiles rather than hearty laughter.

It is in the second half that the evening takes off with the much-loved Dad's Army and of the arrival of the Walmington-on-Sea Home Guard.

Here the acting is much stronger with the cast catching the flavour of each familiar character rather than blindly impersonating the originals.

They are helped by having a much stronger and funnier storyline which blends together the episode of women joining the platoon and the one involving German U-Boat prisoners. Also the production is much tighter and moves at a much slicker pace than the first offering.

John Griffith makes a fine Captain Mainwaring, although he could give him a bit more blustering pomposity.

Particularly pleasing is the way he brings out the more human side of the man in exchanges with Judith Berrill's Mrs Grey. Their scene bore more than a passing nod to Brief Encounter.

Two delightful cameos from Ray Hopper are worthy of mention. His excellent portrayal of Mr Grainger in the first play is matched by his later turn as Corporal Godfrey.

Along with, I suspect, the rest of the audience I wanted more when the play ended. I left the theatre feeling the company would have been better off if they had just stuck to an extended version of Dad's Army.