Adam Riches: Jimmy
Adam Riches's comedy shows have long been high concept, high effort affairs; now he crosses over to the dark side of the Fringe programme (aka the theatre bit) to make his Summerhall debut with Jimmy.
It's a one-man-show about US sportsman Jimmy Connors, the bad boy of '70s tennis, who was eventually eclipsed by the likes of Boris Becker and John McEnroe. They, however, retired as relatively young men. Jimmy is set at the 1991 US Open: with the 39-year-old Connors now way down in the rankings, we meet him just as he's losing a match to Patrick McEnroe, John's little brother. Connors is not happy, a wounded old tiger with nothing but contempt for an opponent he knows he'd have swept past a decade ago.
There are no actual balls in Tom Parry's production. But there is a lot of sweat: racket in hand, Riches hurls himself energetically around the 'court' in recreation of Connors's actual moves. I'm sure it's not a perfect replica, but Riches is bloody good, both lucidly conveying the flow the match and conveying a level of dogged persistance that feels important for Connors's story. Although it has a lot in common with Richard's comedy shows - character work, accent work, just a lot of work - it's definitely not trying to be funny in the way that they are, with just a ghost of his usual infamous audience interactions. The gangly Riches does undeniably remain an intrinsically amusing performer, but the category change makes sense.
Eventually, a despairing Connors sinks into his thoughts and we get a journey through his past: specifically being raised by his tough single mum and coach Gloria, who encouraged him to be aggressive, a trait that won him games but lost him friends. Introspective, Jimmy begins to accept it's over for him. But then his temper is inflamed again – and so begins one of the all time great sports comebacks.
It's an electric performance from Riches: it doesn't need to be nuanced or subtle, it needs to be shattering to watch, and it is. The text, however, feels shy of where it could go: Connor's rage is shown to be a curse more than a blessing, and yet the end does by and large conform to uplifting comeback tropes. It feels on the cusp of saying something quite profound about toxic masculinity in sport but tosses it away at match point. But we're still left with a thrilling display.
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