Summerhall, 1 Summerhall, Red Lecture Theatre: 2, 4, 6, 8, 12, 14, 16 at 1pm (2pm) Anatomy Lecture Theatre: 20, 22 Aug at 3.30pm (4.30pm) Ticket prices: £10, £8 (conc), £7 (preview 2 & 4 Aug)
Fringe first winning theatre maker and long term Chris Goode collaborator Jamie Wood presents an energetic, entertaining and ridiculously competitive new solo show about rivalry and love, and how they can both better us and destroy us. With the help of his audience, amongst vivid and surprising images, he performs a cathartic ritual: recreating and reliving the last point of one fateful match until he is finally able to move on in his life.
Jamie Wood’s work ranges from the comic and darkly surreal plays of The Frequency D’Ici (Paperweight, Fringe First 2008, Director) to the striking physical and visual poetics of Petra’s Pulse(Aegean Fatigue, National Review of Live Art 2008, Co-director and Performer). He is an Associate Artist with Chris Goode & Company. As a long-term collaborator with Goode, Jamie devised and performed in Escapology (2004), the critically acclaimed Homemade (2005) and Longwave (2006), and co-directed Hey Matthew (2008) and 9 (2011). In 2009, he was short-listed for The Stage Acting Award (Best Ensemble) forIcarus 2.0, devised with Matt Ball.
Beating McEnroe is about being a younger brother and a bad loser, about beating ourselves up for failing to live up to our youthful aspirations. It is about the consuming desire to be like other people. It is about competition and control, vitriol and zen. It is funny, disconcerting and strangely beautiful.
Jamie Wood said of the performance: “I used to play tennis all the time from about the age of 6. My brother is 8 years older so he coached me. It struck me as I made the show that it was his way of teaching me how to be a man. My family loved Bjorn Borg. When McEnroe came along, he entered my dreams. I felt like that was prohibited. The show is about questioning the roles we have been handed and yet perhaps not chosen.
With a day job as a clown in a children’s hospital, this style of performance influences Jamie’s work. He notes: “Clown is about openness and honesty. I invite an audience to laugh at my ridiculousness. In a culture that seems so obsessed with individuality I want to invite people to laugh at me, and at the absurdity of the importance I place on an event that is possibly insignificant to them, The Borg McEnroe final of 1980. I use audience interaction not in order to make people look silly but to show how beautiful people are when they are vulnerable. I want all my participants to enjoy being on stage. I want to create a theatrical experience which is uplifting, entertaining and thought provoking.”
Beating McEnroe was originally staged as part of Camden People’s Theatre’s Beyond The Joke Festival in January 2013, as a work-in-progress. Jamie has also directed Rachel Mars in her Edinburgh show: The Way You Tell Them. Both artists met through Camden People’s Theatre’s artist network and are obsessed with human relationships, families, laughter and immense sadness.
*PLEASE NOTE: THIS PRODUCTION IS NOT LISTED IN THE FRINGE BROCHURE*
John graduated from Telford College in 2010 with an HNC in Practical Journalism and since then he worked for the North Edinburgh News, The Southern Reporter, the Irish News Review and The Edinburgh Reporter. In addition he has been published in the Edinburgh Evening News and the Hibernian FC Programme.
