Jamie Wood is in the lotus position wrapped in green towels, with a cuddly toy tiger on his head. He throws tennis balls into the audience as he belts out calming Buddhist-like chants, calming his nerves. ‘All will be fine’ he tells us as he asks us to breathe with him and eventually sing with him. It’s the perfect opening for a show in which we will take on quite a few roles, including Woods’ brother, a tennis umpire, and John McEnroe himself.

Wood’s show is a consistently hilarious exploration of his relationship with his older brother, who coached him in tennis and taught him ‘how to be a man’. He cleverly sets up the rivalry between scatty McEnroe and Borg, his family’s idol, as a mirror of his own struggle with growing up, fitting in, succeeding and being yourself.

Audience members are kept on their toes throughout, which keeps the energy buoyant. We’re never quite sure what we’ll be asked to do next. One girl holds a tennis ball in place while Wood runs circles around her, another uses a toilet plunger to make the sound of a tennis racket hitting a ball and we all throw tennis balls at Wood and scream ‘Loser!’.

It’s a masterclass in interactive performance. There aren’t many performers who can charmingly get a stranger to hug a nearly naked and very sweaty man, never mind rolling around the stage in front of an audience without feeling horrifically self-conscious. Woods has created a clever piece of work that allows us to laugh at our own petty rivalries and classroom traumas that have the ability to haunt us. I found myself thinking about my own younger brother and how I probably made his life tricky from time to time; and it brought me right back to that day when my best friend turned on me and it seemed life would never be the same.

Beating McEnroe is a beautiful and heart-warming piece of lovingly made theatre. It could very easily have been a cloying self-therapy session, but instead it’s a generous, spirited piece that will live with me for a long time.