Review: THE SCORE, Theatre Royal Bath

If the multi award-winning TV drama Succession taught us anything, it’s that no one can take Brian Cox’s place. Fans of the Scottish actor will be pleased to know that he commands centre stage – with Logan Roy-esque verve – in Trevor Nunn’s The Score, a new play by actor-playwright OIiver Cotton at Theatre Royal Bath.

Based on a meeting between JS Bach and Frederick the Great (Stephen Hagan) in the Prussian king’s palace in 1747 three years before the composer’s demise, The Score explores differences between the two mighty men. Bach’s extremely religious and appalled by Frederick’s troops causing chaos in his home city of Leipzig (something that strikes a chord when you read today’s dire world news). Frederick, who was bullied by his father, is nonchalant about the havoc his degenerate soldiers are unleashing.

There’s also a hefty wager between the king and his court composers versus Carl (Bach’s son played by Matthew Burns). Carl bets the ageing Bach will be able to improvise a three-part fugue on a complicated theme the court composers have made as fiendishly difficult as possible.

Two years ago, Simon Russell Beale offered us an equally beleaguered Bach in Nina Raine’s play Bach and Sons at the Bridge Theatre. As well as examining Bach’s relationship with his sons, it also featured the testing encounter between Bach and the king. Cotton’s play focuses on this one event, perhaps to the detriment of us learning more about Bach and his struggles to produce his magnificent music.

However, I did like the exchange of ideas between an older man, who feels he no longer has anything to lose, and a feisty young king at a time when the Enlightment questioned conservative values. A visiting ‘ooh la la’ Voltaire (Peter de Jersey as the OTT philosopher in a performance that wouldn’t look out of place in an episode of Blackadder) represents this Age of Reason. These scenes where Bach and Frederick clash bring dynamism to the exposition heavy and static production, which starts off slowly and is begging for more showing – and less telling.

The cast in general go through their paces admirably, including a rather under-used Nicole Ansari-Cox (Brian’s real-life wife) as Bach’s wife Anna, and an excellent Dona Croll as the servant Emilia. The moment when Emilia comes onto a sparsely-set stage (with glorious lighting by Johanna Town) to hear Bach’s glorious music, we feel the enormous impact the genius composer’s works have made on us all.

Designer Robert Jones conveys the luxe world of Frederick’s court with grand entrances and furniture, compared to Bach’s somewhat simpler and austere household. Costumes are suitably fussy and frilly, and Frederick’s ludicrous silver and gold suit decorated with red bows (Elton John, eat your heart out) gets full marks.

Disappointingly, the play doesn’t offer us many extracts of Bach’s compositions, and drifts off somewhat towards the end of the final act. Spoiler alert: in real life Bach not only pulls off the seemingly impossible task of improvising the three-part fugue in Frederick’s palace, but goes on to create The Musical Offering, containing a six-part fugue and other fantastic works on the same theme. The tragedy of this incredible musical triumph, that was sent to the king as a gift and then consigned to a dusty shelf for years, is thrown away in a line from Carl.

Fine-tuning the script and leaving us with a more satisfying ending might benefit a production full of interesting ideas about two complicated and intriguing men.

The score runs at Theatre Royal Bath until October 28.

Photo credit: Manuel Harlan

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