Beating McEnroe ****
Summerhall Red Lecture Theatre until 22nd August
Written & performed by Jamie Wood
One of sport’s great rivalries forms the backdrop to Jamie Wood’s entertaining and immersive story of bitter defeat as tasted by his six year-old self. The yin and yang of Wood’s battles with his older brother are projected – sometimes literally – onto the epic Borg/McEnroe clash.
The Swede’s failure – mirrored by Wood’s own – is vividly revisited. In a production seemingly designed by his younger self, a near fuzzy felt depiction of the centre court, Six Million Dollar Man slo-mo dollops of physical theatre and Heath Robinson styled machinery are merely embellishments to the tale and in the wrong hands would have passed for Fringe amateurism.
It is Wood’s bond with the audience and his engagingly naive character that draws us in. There are many of us who will have been on the receiving end of life lessons from elder siblings, and the re-enactment of defeat at their hands is touchingly hilarious. A dollop of slapstick and the help of some only too willing members of the audience make for a startlingly bonkers finale with loss avenged in Wood’s inimitable hands-on fashion.
Submitted by Michael Moloney
