REVIEW: THE SCORE by Oliver Cotton at Theatre Royal Haymarket 20 February – 26 April 2025

Photography: Manuel Harlan

‘Bitty play beautifully acted’ ★★★

In May 1747, the elderly JS Bach travelled from Leipzig to Potsdam at the invitation of Frederick the Great. It resulted in a composition of a set of pieces called The Musical Offering and allowed “the most famous composer in Europe” to catch up with his son CPE (Carl Philipp Emanuel) Bach who worked at Frederick’s court for 27 years. It’s an interesting starting point for a play.

The trouble is that it tries to fire on too many cylinders at once and seems unable to decide what it’s trying to do. Is it about personal conflict between two very strong men? Is it about music and the compositional process? Is it about three lesser known, sycophantic composers comically creating the great JS Bach with an “unfugable” theme and gambling on the outcome? Is it about the obscenity of land-grabbing war? Is is about the strength of religious conviction butting against Enlightenment atheism? Or are we meant to draw topical parallels? It had never struck me before that if you substitute Ukraine for Silesia, Putin is simply Frederick the Great without his flute although the play doesn’t stress this point. It simply muddles on for two hours and forty minutes including interval.

At the heart of this play is a magnificent performance from Brian Cox as JS Bach which almost redeems it. He blends irascibility with tenderness and fury about the earlier Prussian raid on Leipzig. His fearless berating of Stephen Hagan’s Frederick is fine theatre and we feel all the frustration of a sick old man when he finally gets home. The first and last scenes affectionately present him with his second wife Anna, played by Cox’s real-life wife Nicole Ansari-Cox. JS Bach, the cantor who had to serve up a new cantata every week, was a deeply religious man and it underpins everything Cotton’s version of him does and says – all convincingly nailed by Cox.

Hagan’s Frederick is variously chatty, urbane, imperious and ruthless. He glitters dangerously but makes everything he says sound reasonable until he gets angry and launches into nationalistic rhetoric. It’s another fine performance and a strong dramatic contrast to Cox’s Bach. There’s pleasing work too from Juliet Garrick as Emilia the servant and from Jamie Wilkes as CPE Bach.

Robert Jones’s set and costumes star in their own right although the occasional use of the revolve is a bit pointless. Flown in scenery includes a plain wall with Christian cross in the Bach family home which contrasts with rather lovely carved doors and a pair of ionic columns with lots of oil paintings at Potsdam. And he’s had fun with authentic late eighteenth century long velvet jackets and the inevitable wigs. It’s a nice touch that JS Bach’s comfy wig looks like a homely grey bonnet and we learn that he can’t be bothered to have it “dressed”. The harpsichords are pretty too.

Because this is, at least in part, a play about music, we hear snatches of great Bach works which shine through and one is left wishing for more. Sound designer and additional composer Sophie Cotton certainly knows what she’s doing.

It isn’t Oliver Cotton’s fault that when Peter de Jersey arrives as a hammed up Voltaire, I am immediately put in mind of an appalling OU programme which was part of my 1980s degree course – not one of the, usually excellent, OU’s finer moments. It created an imaginary dinner party at Potsdam in which every Enlightenment figure expressed a view which was meant to help us learn who thought what. In fact it was the most laughably bad acting I’ve ever seen. I still giggle to think about it. Of course The Score is a hundred times better than that.

THE SCORE at Theatre Royal 20 February – 26 April 2025

BOX OFFICE

A new play by Oliver Cotton

Starring Brian Cox and Nicole Ansari-Cox 

Directed by Trevor Nunn

Theatre Royal Bath Productions 

Ensemble: Peter De Jersey as Voltaire, Juliet Garricks as Emilia, Stephen Hagan as Frederick, Jamie Wilkes as Carl, Christopher Staines as Quantz, Toby Webster as Benda, Matthew Romain as Graun and James Gladdon as Helstein, with Geoffrey Towers, Jordan Kilshaw and Rebecca Thornhill.