Review Roundup: THE SCORE, Directed by Trevor Nunn

Legendary stage and screen actor Brian Cox stars as Johann Sebastian Bach in Oliver Cotton’s new play, The Score, originally presented at the Theatre Royal Bath.

Spring 1747, Potsdam, Prussia. Johann Sebastian Bach reluctantly visits the court of Frederick II, Europe’s most ambitious and dangerous leader. The two men could hardly be more different. Bach is deeply religious, Frederick is an atheist. Bach loathes war, Frederick revels in it. Bach studies scripture, Frederick reads military history. Frederick remains in awe of Bach’s genius however and has mischievously prepared a musical conundrum that he hopes will baffle the composer and amuse his court. The explosive events of the following days could not have been predicted by either man.

What did the critics think?

The Score is at Theatre Royal Haymarket until 26 April

Photo credit: Manuel Harlan

Cindy Marcolina, BroadwayWorld: The play might want to be a large invective against war but stays safely sat on the fence as nothing more than a vehicle for historical review. Cotton asks his audience to peer beyond this meeting of minds and search for deeper meaning, but doesn’t add the juicy subtext or linguistic rhythm necessary to make this the theatrical colossus he expects it to be. As it is, it’s an old-fashioned production with an ambiguous raison d’être aimed at the grey pound.

Dominic Maxwell, The Times: Cox, I suppose, is the point here. He inhabits his impoverished genius totally while also operating at the pitch of pure showman. He throws away quips and rises to anger with equal ease. And as Bach compliments Carl (Jamie Wilkes) sincerely, as he withstands the charm whirlwind that is Voltaire (Peter De Jersey), he remains so watchable partly through being so watchful.

Tim Bano, The Standard: There’s a sense of Cox taking Bach and moulding him into Cox: he’s a man full of principle and unafraid to speak his mind, even to a warmongering king. Like a squeeze box he inflates and deflates at will. Some speeches have him puffed up, rage in his eyes, bellowing about war and tyranny (the man can shout like few others). Moments later he crumples, tired and aged, especially in a tender scene which sees his son Carl (an earnest Jamie Wilkes) undressing him.

Theo Bosanquet, London Theatre: There are some fine performances among the 14-strong ensemble, notably Wilkes’s skittish Carl, who places a wager on his father’s talents to clear his debts, and Hagan’s frustrated Frederick, himself a captive of societal convention. There’s also a moving turn from Juliet Garricks as Emilia, a servant in Frederick’s court whose young son has been killed on the battlefield. But it’s Cox’s impassioned, emotionally wrought portrayal of fading genius that shines brightest.

Lucinda Everett, WhatsOnStage: Despite Robert Jones’s sumptuous set and costumes, free-flowing jokes, and the kind of consummate directing you’d expect from Trevor Nunn, it feels turgid at times. And especially so in the aftermath of Bach and Frederick’s main confrontation, when we move to Leipzig for more contemplation and a final, less electric, meeting between the pair. But this play has a trick up its sleeve: its Bach is Brian Cox (perhaps best known as Succession’s Logan Roy) and he is mesmerising. So much so that any aimless spots or protracted scenes just feel like extra opportunities to watch him at work.

Andrzej Lukowski, TimeOut: While I’m sure Cotton has done his homework, he’s surely betting that the average British audience is unlikely to have any real opinion on Frederick. His play contents itself with an antagonist who is a sort of vague mish mash of biographical exposition, Blackadder-style toff-isms, and bits where Frederick’s warmongering is unsubtly paralleled with Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. I’m not saying there’s any need to be totally historically accurate in a work of fiction. But Cotton’s king feels like a half-hearted collection of tyrant tropes rather than a credible character. It’s hard not to see The Score as a distant relative of Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus, but it’s simply not in the same league in terms of characterisation.

Rachel Halliburton, The Arts Desk: Why is it so hard to write a decent play about Bach? Maybe, in part, because there are no words that can express anything as eloquently as his music did – about life and death, pain and transcendence, wretchedness or rapture at the simplest aspects of existence. So much of what he represented was distilled into that music – and what we are left with biographically is the workaholism, the curmudgeonliness, the rows with figures of authority.

Average Rating: 54.3%