"Spending an hour in the company of his imagination is dizzying... always unpredictable, utterly hilarious and often giddily uplifting... one of the oddest, most original and entertaining hours you're likely to spend in a theatre."
★★★★  Exeunt Magazine

Beating McEnroe

1981. Wimbledon. Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe face each other across the net: the self-controlled champion and the impassioned upstart. An epic rivalry comes to a head. A six-year old boy watches and learns.

Bjorn Borg epitomised tennis cool. He was everything Jamie and his brother wanted to be. Then John McEnroe came along and Jamie was beaten, along with Borg. Thirty years of torment and self-questioning later, Jamie is ready to face his greatest opponent. Beating McEnroe is about being a younger brother and a bad loser. It is about competition and control, vitriol and zen. It is about rivalry and love and how they can both better us and destroy us. It is funny, familiar and strangely beautiful.

Beating McEnroe is a solo show from award-winning theatre maker Jamie Wood about a pivotal moment. With the help of his audience, amongst vivid, surprising images, Jamie 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. 

Shortlisted for a Total Theatre Award for Innovation, Experimentation and Playing with Form at Edinburgh 2013
Winner of the From Edinburgh with Love award from Ovalhouse
Winner of the Best Show at Birmingham’s BE Festival as voted by the audience in 2014

REVIEWS

"...brilliantly bonkers. A vital dose of joy" ★★★★ Fest Magazine
"Unpredictable,  often  hilarious,  and  at  points  unexpectedly life-affirming" ★★★★ Broadway Baby
"Beating McEnroe is as funny as the best comedy, super-theatrical & entirely unlike anything else" The Guardian
"Spending an hour in the company of his imagination is dizzying... always unpredictable, utterly hilarious and often giddily uplifting... one of the oddest, most original and entertaining hours you're likely to spend in a theatre." ★★★★  Exeunt Magazine
"...touchingly hilarious... startlingly bonkers" ★★★★ The Edinburgh Reporter  
"...a lecture in weird humour, delivered by an expert... a natural clown" ★★★★ A Younger  Theatre 
"Beating McEnroe is a beautiful and heart-warming piece of lovingly made theatre... it’s a generous, spirited piece that will live with me for a long time." Total Theatre

CREATIVE TEAM

Jamie Wood in collaboration with co-directors Ellie Griffith and Wendy Hubbard.