The UCOS team investigate the death of British junior tennis prodigy Alice Kemp, after new evidence comes to light that she may not have been alone when she died. Gerry has family concerns, and Steve gets into a spot of trouble regarding his Glaswegian approach to policing.
About
The sixth episode of series nine of New Tricks, ‘Love Means Nothing in Tennis’ aired 1st October 2012 on BBC One. The series was created by Roy Mitchell and Nigel McCrery and this episode was written by Lisa Holdsworth and Julian Simpson and directed by Robin Sheppard.
It stars Denis Lawson as ‘Steve McAndrew’, Alun Armstrong as ‘Brian Lane’, Amanda Redman as ‘Sandra Pullman’ and Dennis Waterman as ‘Gerry Standing’. Guest starring this episode are Susan Jameson as ‘Esther Lane’, Tamzin Outhwaite as ‘Victoria Kemp’, Alexei Sayle as ‘Anthony Marshall’ and Benjamin Wilkin as ‘Nick Hoyle.’
Tamzin Outhwaite’s appearance here is notable as she will later replace Amanda Redman as series regular playing an entirely different character.
Availability: Available for purchase in the UK on DVD and digitally. Episodes also occasionally pop up on iPlayer, and television reruns are common—be aware that broadcast reruns are often cut down to fit in the hour timeslot with advertisements. Also available on DVD and digitally in the US.
Love Means Nothing in Tennis
Gerry Standing has taken his grandson—Gerry Jr—to his football match. Brian joins him, along with Brian’s dog Scampi. Gerry’s grandson isn’t half bad; he gets it from his mother Paula, Gerry says, who back in the say was a fairly successful junior footballer before she gave it all up. Sadly, the match is called off when Scampi decides to mount a pitch invasion and go after the ball.
At UCOS, the death of junior tennis champion Alice Kemp is being reopened. She fell from a height after losing a championship map and it was suspected to be a suicide—but never confirmed. Now, evidence has come to light indicating there was a fight in the apartment she was staying in ten minutes before her death.
The team go and visit the apartment, noting that it’s very flashy for a girl of sixteen to be staying there alone—a gift, from her agent, an advance on the massive payday that was incoming because of her success. It’s secure. Whoever got in that night, Alice either let them in, or they had a key.
Sandra and Gerry go to see Alice’s mother and sister; Victoria and Jess. Jess displays no shortage of concern about the entire situation. She reveals that their father came to see them, during the rain break. She thinks that was the cause of Alice’s dramatic drop in form.
Alice’s old agent, meanwhile, now represents her opponent in that final match: Fawn Brammall. Nick Hoyle, Alice’s coach, is still teaching—coaches Jess, in fact—and whilst he charges a pretty penny for his services, he never charged Jess or Alice anything. He knew they had talent. Their dad? He’s on benefits and heavily in debt. It could be that he was after Alice’s money.
Whilst at Alice’s agent, Brian discovers that the agency also caters for dogs. And, of course, Scampi is a far better dog than the one on display. So, much to the despair of his poor wife Esther, he seeks out him camera for a photoshoot.
Gerry also has personal concerns; he wonders if he should have pushed Paula harder when she was younger, and maybe she’d have had a professional football career. Sandra doubts it—she hated being forced into things by her parents, and suspects Paula is the same. Gerry even visits, but can’t quite bring himself to ask Paula.
The next day, Sandra and Gerry crash Fawn Brammall’s photoshoot. Irina Brammall, unlike Victoria, is the definition of a pushy tennis mother—and it’s obvious how uncomfortable Fawn is with the attention of the photographers. Gerry finally has enough, offering her his coat and ushering her off.
Steve, meanwhile, goes to investigate the home of Mr Kemp. There’s no response, but that doesn’t deter Steve in the slightest. He nips round to the back garden, over the fence, and uses the lockpicks he carries to break into the house. Inside, there’s evidence that Mr Kemp has a serious gambling problem. When the front door goes, Steve answers it. Two thugs are on the doorstep, and they waste no time in slugging Steve to the ground.
“I hate London.”
Back at UCOS, Steve manages to identify the two thugs, who are well known to the police as gambling enforcers. And when Sandra learns what he did—namely, break into a house without a warrant—she is furious with him.
Mr Kemp is finally tracked down to a Gamblers Anonymous meeting, where Steve and Brian ambush him. Steve is aggressive with him, not quite understanding, and Mr Kemp is defensive. Brian tries a different track, opening up about his problem with alcohol. This is all news to Steve, who regards it not as the truth, but as a ploy. Mr Kemp admits that he asked Alice to throw the match—he’d placed a significant bet on Fawn—but she didn’t agree to it. She barely seemed to notice him. Despite this, he’s always felt responsible for Alice’s death, believing that she killed herself out of guilt for throwing the match.
Gerry runs into Fawn and Irina Brammall, who are returning his coat; dry-cleaned, of course. He returns to the UCOS office where there are lunchtime shenanigans going on. Gerry finds a note in his pocket just as Sandra has a realisation. Fawn wasn’t celebrating her win. She knows more than she’s letting on—and she wants to speak to them.
The team head to Fawn’s practice centre. It turns out that Alice and Fawn were good friends, and Fawn has snuck away to see her the night Alice died. The thing Alice was actually upset about? Jess joining Nick Hoyle’s academy, because Nick had been abusing her and she was concerned that the same thing would happen to Jess. Fawn was, in fact, in the apartment when Alice was killed. She was in the bathroom at the time. Whoever it was had a key, and Alice was angry with them. Fawn went home that night and told her mother everything—who then told her to keep quiet about everything.
Hoyle is dragged in for interrogation, where he says everything he can to get out of responsibility for his actions in abusing Alice. They get specialist officers in to speak to Jess—who has had a near miss, it seems—but discover Hoyle had abused other children in his care.
Gerry returns to Paula. This time, she manages to drag the question from him. Does she regret giving football up? Should he have tried harder? Of course not, she says. The thing she always loved about him was that he let her make her own decisions, her own mistakes.
The rest of the team go down to the pub, still thinking about the case. They still don’t know who was in the apartment. But whoever it was—they had a key. Victoria Kemp is the only other person who had a key. It must have been her.
They bring her in. She knew about the abuse, all along, and tolerated it because that was the sacrifice needed to ensure Alice’s success. When Alice discovered this, she threatened to expose her mother, and they argued on the balcony. In the struggle, Alice fell from the roof. Victoria didn’t tell anyone because she was worried it would ruin Jess’s future—though really, it’s clear that she was only ever thinking about herself.
Verdict
In coming in mid-way through the show, the greatest thing we have missed out on is all the character development with the others. This episode builds heavily on the previously established close relationship between Gerry and his daughter Paula (remember, Gerry has three ex-wives and three daughters and it on amiable terms with the lot of them, somehow.) Despite Gerry being a little rough around the edges—the sort of character one would almost expect misogyny from—it’s clear that Gerry has always treated the women in his life with the utmost respect.
This carries through to the care he shows for young Fawn in this episode. He’s horrified at the way she’s treated, paraded about against her wishes, and tries as hard as he can to create a place of safety for her. It’s very sweet.
Brian’s subplot in trying to make Scampi a star is, well, probably one of the most memorable subplots in the show, notable for the comedic sequence in which Brian attempts to get Scampi into the bath only to end up in there himself.
Steve never misses a chance to proclaim Scottish superiority, and he gets in a great one here; Andy Murray, Britain’s greatest modern tennis player, is notably a Scot. It doesn’t matter that the English don’t take tennis seriously anymore; the Scots will come through.
Steve’s breaking and entering—well, I did tell you all that he and Sandra were going to clash on methodology for a little bit. Steve is clearly used to having a little bit more leeway to gather evidence, not being particularly concerned about obeying the letter of the law as much as ensuring that justice is done. Sandra, meanwhile, needs things to be done by the book; there cannot be room for anyone to question the evidence they have.
Steve is still learning about his new colleagues, and is clearly surprised when Brian spins his story about his history with alcohol. Again, the significance and weight of that moment is a little lost if you haven’t seen the previous nine series—Brian relapses over the course of them—but it’s still very poignant. New Tricks, especially through Brian, has always given mental health the care and concern it deserves, creating realistic stories and earnest portrayals that you don’t often see.
All in all, a solid episode. Victoria Kemp is amusing in retrospect, given how different she is to Tamzin Outhwaites other New Tricks character, Sasha Miller. Brian and Gerry get the spotlight this episode, leaving Steve to tidy up the rear and get in trouble. Also, the episode title, containing a truly groan worthy pun, is a minor stroke of brilliance.
Next time
The team investigate the mysterious death of Sean Doherty, a promising young poet who was found burnt to death in the scrap yard of a heroin dealer. Gerry proves to be allergic to poetry, while Brian swears that the entire case will be cracked if they can only uncover the hidden message in the poem. And Steve is very Scottish. All that and more in New Tricks: Dead Poets