Tennis court the backdrop for riveting and complex drama
By Debi Enker
One of the intriguing things about Fifteen-Love (BBC First, Binge) is that, at the outset, it’s impossible to know who to believe. The volatile and clearly damaged former tennis champion or her smoothly confident coach? Is this a case of a vengeful woman scorned, or a cunning sexual predator endeavouring to conceal his crimes? By the end of the second episode of the six-part drama created and written by Hania Elkington, we also know that each of them lies, easily and automatically.
When we first meet Justine Pearce (Ella Lily Hyland), the English teenager and French Open wildcard is being hailed by the media as “Britain’s new hope” and described as “a powerful young player who has made a shocking rise to stardom in this tournament. ” The introduction comes as she’s in the locker room with her coach, Glenn Lapthorn (Aidan Turner), preparing to take the court for a potentially career-making semi-final. He’s bandaging her wrist as he tries to coax her into the right frame of mind: “You’re the fire, she’s the fuel,” he says, revving her up. When she moves to kiss him, he resists, saying, “No, stop, we talked about this.”
Is tennis coach Glenn Lapthorne (Aidan Turner) a sexual predator? And is Justine Pearce (Ella Lily Hyland) seeking revenge for her derailed career?Credit: BBC First
The rejection is loaded with ambiguity, as is the nature of their relationship. Is she doing something that they’ve done before and he’s objecting to the timing because she should be focusing on the match ahead? Or is she initiating something and being rebuffed?
The sequence radiates intimacy and intensity as director Eva Riley keeps the camera in tight and close, focusing on body parts – eyes, lips, arms – and then on the fierce determination on Justine’s face when she takes the court. She’s clearly carrying an injury and trying to push through her pain. It’s thoroughly absorbing drama, the rust-coloured clay of Roland-Garros providing a striking backdrop.
Cut to five years later and Justine’s out partying. The scar on her wrist indicates surgery and we learn that Glenn has moved on to coaching a new player, Luca (Lorenzo Richelmy), who’s just won the French Open. Glenn’s now seen as a star coach able to guide champions to glory. His return to the Longwood Academy, a tennis-focused school where he met Justine when she was a scholarship student, is viewed as a great get for an institution chasing money and prestige, and run with a tightly controlling hand by Andi Woodward (Anna Chancellor).
It’s a posh place, regarded as a feeder to the pro tennis circuit, with parents paying big bucks to secure a place there for their offspring. It’s also where Justine met her friend, flatmate and fellow scholarship student, Renee (Harmony Rose-Bremner).
The drama pivots between past and present, swinging between Justine’s memories of her heady time in tennis and her less glamorous present, working as a physiotherapist at Longwood. Glenn’s reappearance, with his wife (Manon Azem) and two young boys, triggers her anger: she feels cast aside and, one drunken night, she ricochets to the police station to report Glenn for taking advantage of her sexually when she was a teenager.
In addition to the absorbing set-up, Fifteen-Love benefits considerably from the casting of its leads. Newcomer Hyland is convincing and compelling in both time periods: as a fresh-faced, talented and hungry teen who has the world at her feet, and as a brittle and embittered twentysomething, destructive to herself and to those around her. Turner, who won hearts and fans as the lead in the romantic period drama Poldark, is ideal for his role: charismatic, athletic, assured. He establishes Glenn as someone with a keen eye on his own interests who knows how to turn on the charm and provide a friendly, reassuring pat on the arm or shoulder, or thigh. A scene in which he calms a rebellion from the volatile Luca is a masterclass in manipulation, neatly illustrating how persuasive he can be when his reputation or goals are threatened.
Fifteen-Love begins by posing a dilemma about truth and how difficult it can be to determine what really happens between two people behind closed doors. But as it progresses, it broadens its focus, raising questions to do with ambition, power, exploitation and manipulation. It also subtly weaves in questions of class: Longwood is a prestigious establishment that Justine and Renee could only access through scholarships.
While the world of tennis provides an exciting backdrop and specific context for this case, it’s hardly an isolated example of situations like this. Recent years have exposed ugly and abusive relationships between young women and older, more powerful men in a range of fields, including government, law, medicine and entertainment.
Yet tennis is also a distinct area in the sporting arena. It’s an individual sport, not a team event, and the relationship between a coach and player is necessarily close, bound by shared dreams of success that will benefit them both. As former player Pam Shriver revealed recently, she had an “inappropriate and damaging relationship” with her coach, Don Candy, which started when she was 17 and he was 50.
“I believe abusive coaching relationships are alarmingly common in sport as a whole,” she wrote in an English newspaper column. “My particular expertise, though, is in tennis, where I have witnessed dozens of instances in my four-and-a-bit decades as a player and commentator. Every time I hear about a player who is dating their coach, or I see a male physio working on a female body in the gym, it sets my alarm bells ringing.“
The tennis world might provide fertile ground for such relationships, and that’s skillfully evoked in the opening scenes of Fifteen-Love. Yet what the series also suggests is that while some things might be clear-cut, human beings are complicated creatures and their relationships can be equally complex.
Fifteen-Love is on Binge and BBC First, Sunday, 8.30pm.
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