A theatre production about Australian tennis great John Newcombe is coming to Gosnells and Kalamunda as the Wimbledon season gets underway.
NEWK (The John Newcombe Story), written by playwright Kieran Carroll and performed by Melbourne actor Paul Armstrong, follows the life of one of Australia’s most successful tennis players, from his rise as a young competitor in the 1960s to becoming the world’s top-ranked player in the 1970s.
Carroll said Newcombe’s story offered much more than sporting success.
“He was a childhood hero, has had an enormous life and I wanted to find a player that was successful in both the amateur years of the 1960s and the full-blown professionalism of the 1970s,” he said.
The play is set during Newcombe’s 80th birthday celebrations and revisits key moments from his life, including his tennis career, business ventures, family life and the stroke he suffered in 2003.
Carroll said one fact that often surprises audiences is that Newcombe represented Australia at just 19 years old.
“He played the Davis Cup final that year against America in Adelaide,” he said.
Armstrong said portraying such a well-known Australian sporting figure came with challenges.
“Not being an impersonator, for me it was searching for the elements of Newk that I felt I could best connect with,” he said.
“I also had to do a fair amount of work finding a voice. And I got to watch a lot of 1970s tennis.”
Researching the role also gave Armstrong a new appreciation for Newcombe’s approach to the game.
“It struck me that John seemed to be way ahead of his time in relation to the psychology of tennis,” he said.
“He was exploring and using visualisation in preparation for matches from a fairly young age.”
Armstrong said another side of Newcombe that stood out was his commitment to helping others in the sport.
“There is a strong theme that runs through his career, as player, coach and mentor, that the team of Australian tennis is very, very important to John,” he said.
While the production focuses on one of Australia’s sporting icons, Armstrong said audiences often leave reflecting on their own memories.
“People tell stories about seeing him play on TV, being at his matches, attending one of his tennis camps and being coached by him,” he said.
“These memories inevitably take people back to times in their lives when they were younger.”
One of the most powerful moments in the play centres on Newcombe learning of his father’s death while travelling overseas.
Armstrong said the scene became even more personal after he received news that his own father had died on the day rehearsals began in Melbourne last year.
“Sometimes, a piece of theatre, or the aspect of a character, throws up an unexpected connection with your own life as a performer,” he said.
Carroll said audiences also enjoy revisiting Newcombe’s television advertisements from the 1970s and 1980s.
“How many advertisements they remember Newks doing from the 1970s and 80s” has been one of the biggest surprises since the production began touring in 2019, he said.
The playwright said he had long wanted to bring the production to Western Australia.
“I’ve always wanted to do shows in WA and this offer to do Perth during Wimbledon time when tennis is in the air is a great opportunity,” he said.
Among the crowd favourites is the story of Newcombe and doubles partner Fred Stolle coming out of retirement at the 1981 US Open and pushing the world’s top-ranked team to a deciding fifth set.
NEWK (The John Newcombe Story) will be performed at Don Russell Performing Arts Centre in Gosnells on July 24 and Kalamunda Performing Arts Centre on July 25.
