Jimmy. Park Theatre.

Adam Riches’ wildly energetic one-man take on the life of brash, combative, and uber-competitive tennis player Jimmy Connors was a sell-out at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe. It is easy to see why. We meet the character sitting beside the ‘court’, in this case the Park Theatre’s Park 90 space, brooding, with their head under a towel. This is a wound-up feline with Slazenger paws and “tiger juice” in his veins.

“I might have certain issues surrounding my anger” he declares as he begins to play, shooting out a cascade of “fuck it” to anyone listening. “Tennis is Combat. Tennis is war,” he shouts, darting around the stage, sweating, thwacking the imaginary ball, switching furiously from forehand to backhand. The action looks real enough, and Riches’ technical skill in simultaneously playing and monologuing impresses immensely.

Drumbeat sequences from Roy Martin mark out the seconds between shots. Sound designer Jim Johnson gives us the whipcrack of high-speed tennis balls, impeccably choreographed with Riches’ serves, lobs, and volleys. “I gotta do a month of this”, the breathless performer moans late on, sotto voce, to an audience member. By the end of 60 minutes, he is visibly shattered. You will feel for him.

The match we observe, a space for the Connors to cogitate on the question “Who the hell am I?” is late in his career. He is losing badly to a McEnroe, and not even the good one. “The goddam greatest tennis player who ever lived,” is, to say the least, peeved. Can the Gram Slam of being an asshole pull off a comeback? The man has a merciless desire to win, so don’t rule it out.

The sheer electricity of the piece, to some extent, conceals what is, at its core, a fairly by-the-book bioplay. Riches sees Connors as a supremely self-confident, Alpha-male incarnation of toxic masculinity in sport. Railing against the tennis establishment, the media, fans, and fellow players, he embodies unfettered, even cruel, competitiveness. It is a striking portrayal, but one cannot help but think that there must be more to the man than this. Nuance is in short supply.

Riches’ psychological account of how Connors becomes this way seems a bit simplistic, too. Coached from near infancy by a hyper-competitive mother, Gloria, and grandmother (he calls them “Mum and Two-Mum”), he takes on an unshakable belief in the need to win at all costs. At age six, he watches Mum being brutally attacked. He becomes her avenging angel, unloading his PTSD onto opposing players. The psychoanalysis feels incomplete, but the theatre is absolutely tremendous.

Writer:  Adam Riches

Director:  Tom Parry