Edinburgh Fringe 2024
Tennis
DON GNU
Genre: Circus, Dance, Physical Theatre
Venue: Zoo Southside
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
Welcome to Wimbledon. Not. Two competing dancers/clowns/mime artists/circus acrobats/completely zany idiots deliver an hour of dance, ballet, circus acrobatics and mime, together with a small bucket load of complete zaniness as they re-enact that iconic four hour, five set thriller. Oh, and bring your tennis shoes as there’s plenty of chances to join in.
Review
Anyone for tennis? Even if you weren’t on the planet in 1980 and so didn’t watch it live or on the good old Beeb (in the days when they actually showed a bit of sport), you’ve probably seen the full thing now that it’s available on YouTube. Borg versus MacEnroe. That five set epic. Four hours of peerless tennis. With wooden racquets. But DON McEnroe and Björn GNU? You have got to be kidding me. You cannot be serious! Umpire, you cannot be serious!
Welcome to Wimbledon. Sort of. At least a realistic representation thereof, with the stage laid out as a tennis court complete with a creatively angled “net”, changing bench and what must be the largest collection of wooden tennis racquets (remember them?) ever to grace an Edinburgh Fringe stage. An impressive multi-media screen, cunningly shaped like a tennis ball, dominates the custom made backdrop wall that also contains a lighting display worthy of a review of its own. But that’s for another time.
Zoo Southside’s arena is impressively huge, creating just the sort of space that this contest needs, allowing Jannik Elkær and Kristoffer Louis Andrup Pedersen, our “competing” dancers/clowns/mime artists/circus acrobats/completely zany idiots, the room to deliver an hour of dance, ballet, bit of audience interaction, circus acrobatics, mime, bit more audience interaction, a soupcon of finger knitting and tango wrestling together with a small bucket load of complete zaniness as they re-enact that iconic four hour, five set thriller.
Right! Warm-up time. Cue a display of interesting exercises probably never deployed by any sportsman, never mind the pair Elkær and Pedersen are mimicking. Then it’s time to pick up the racquets and play. No balls? No problem. Just mime bouncing it as you prepare to serve and the sound guy will do the rest for you. As he also does when you actually hit the thing over the net.
Fed up with your opponents gamesmanship? Again, no problem. Just persuade some gullible idiot in the audience to take your place. Complete with said sound effects to reinforce the illusion that there’s actually a tennis game going on in front of you.
This was an intriguing piece of ‘erm, well, performance art I suppose. But it’s more than that. This is a piece that features genuinely innovative dance, mime, physical theatre, slapstick, farce, clowning, and some quite complex circus acrobatics (just don’t try them at home folks) in an hour that amuses, entertains and opens your eyes to the many different ways there are of telling a story, even one as well known as this.
The audience naturally focuses on the very able performances from co-creators of Tennis, Elkær and Pedersen, both consummate practitioners of their many arts. But this is a lot more than just two people on a stage. The superb multi-media effects, the scenography, the costume design (it’s a lot more than just two blokes in tennis gear), the video and sound design, the set design and the music all add up to the most impressive “off set” contribution to a production that I’ve seen at the Fringe in years.
DON McEnroe versus Björn GNU is tennis as it’s probably never been seen before. So, if you’re able to turn up the dial on your “wilful suspension of disbeliefometer”, this could be your game set and match. Otherwise just stick to Wimbledon’s famed strawberries and cream.
