British playwright Ella Road’s Fair Play comes at you straight out of the blocks. Focused on a pair of gifted young women runners, it runs headlong into one of sport’s cherished myths: that you can be a winner if you just try hard enough, long enough.

Londoners Ann and Sophie are teenaged 800m prospects at the start of their athletic careers. They post similar times and share the same dream but come from very different backgrounds. Sophie attends a blue-ribbon private school, with all the advantages that brings. Ann is from far-off Hounslow, near Heathrow, and from a working-class family.

Sophie blanks Ann at first, cleaving to the ‘no friends on the track’ ethos. After repeated encounters, however, she thaws and becomes intensely admiring of Ann and her ability. Sophie is good, no doubt about it. Ann, it seems, could be great.

But when Ann is pulled aside after a routine blood test, everything crashes down. Her testosterone levels are deemed too high and she is disqualified from running in a women’s event.

Rachel Crossan and Elodie Westhoff in Fair Play. Photo © Robert Miniter

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