The Score starring Brian Cox – Reviews Round-up [Updated]

Theatre Royal Bath: "Brian Cox is magnificent as he returns to the stage"

"Oliver Cotton’s drama about JS Bach’s relationship with the Prussian king brilliantly plays to the Succession actor’s strengths"

"After a slow-burn set-up, it’s a blazing scene that plays to Cox’s strengths as a stage animal, forbidding as he stoutly stands his ground and locks eyes with Stephen Hagan’s haughty Frederick, but also invested with deep humanity."

"It almost works brilliantly as a play of ideas – and under Trevor Nunn’s fleet direction, the piece attains a sense of urgency despite its gilded period trappings (we are now back in an age of autocrats, and expect our artists to challenge the status quo)."

"... the under-written nature of Bach’s exhortative wife (tenderly played by Cox’s real-life spouse Nicole Ansari-Cox) is just one element of a script that could do with more fine-tuning"

"Theatre Royal Bath: Brian Cox strikes a chord as JS Bach"

"... Cotton, a distinguished actor as well as a playwright, draws us in because he is addressing weighty questions of art and morality. When the composer and the monarch argue over the ethics of war — Bach is aggrieved that Frederick’s Prussian troops have run amok back home in Leipzig — it’s hard to ignore the parallels with this month’s grim headlines."

"It helps, of course, that the irascible Bach is played by the no less irascible Brian Cox. His volcanic presence, around which the hit TV drama Succession revolved, adds gravitas."

"If you already love Bach’s music, you’ll be charmed. If you’re a newcomer, this is a stately way to get better acquainted."

"Theatre Royal Bath: Succession's Logan Roy plays gentler note as Bach"

"Verdict: nicely composed."

"... in Bath we get to see a whole other side to Brian Cox — sad, tender and actually rather sweet as the great German composer Johann Sebastian Bach."

"Cotton's script for the first half at least is amiable, costumed chit-chat including an amusing appearance from the radical French philosopher Voltaire. But then it focuses on the musical challenge, and Bach's daring to confront the King over allowing his army to rape and pillage."

"It's a fairly gentle walk in the park for Cox, and Trevor Nunn's grand production allows his leading man to sit for much of his time on stage. But that doesn't mean Cox lacks vigour. His rich tenor voice glows like a homely fire — letting off the odd falsetto spark of surprise. And he's thoroughly at ease with his real-life wife, Nicole Ansari-Cox, playing Bach's historical wife, Anna."

"The staging impresses, too, thanks to Robert Jones's design featuring a pretty collection of harpsichords, as well as a series of backdrops displaying Imperial portraits, and a huge pastoral tapestry."

Theatre Royal Haymarket: "Irresistible and bittersweet"

"Trevor Nunn directs a lively period piece starring Brian Cox"

"Given Nunn’s reputation and Cotton’s pedigree, it’s surprising to be detained in the epilogue for so long. Yet it’s a treat to hear Cox, latterly better known for his screen work, in an auditorium, where his vocal technique, pitch and projection can really grab you."

"Music is surprisingly thin, not only in the sense that there isn’t that much of it – it’s Bach, it’s glorious, we want to hear it – but also in that some of the harpsichord is too authentically quiet. But Robert Jones’ revolving set and costumes and Johanna Town’s lighting are very slick, and transitions between scenes are effortless magic."

"It’s touching to see the chemistry between Cox and his real-life wife Nicole Ansari-Cox, who is dauntless and fiery as Bach’s spouse, Anna. The story, as with all worthwhile historical plays, resonates with our times, and the portrayal of Bach is irresistible and bittersweet."

Theatre Royal Haymarket: "Brian Cox is a magnetic JS Bach in courtly drama The Score — review"

"Oliver Cotton’s play tackles burning issues of war, faith and pragmatism at a leisurely pace at London’s Theatre Royal Haymarket"

"Should a man mollify a powerful, petulant leader who invites him to visit and then springs a trap? Or challenge him? That’s one of the questions running through Oliver Cotton’s play and it doesn’t take much of a stretch to spy contemporary resonances in it."

"The year is 1747. and the invited guest is Johann Sebastian Bach, the great composer, played as a man of profound and irascible integrity by a mighty, magnetic Brian Cox."

"... his wife, Anna — who emerges as both warm and astute in Nicole Ansari-Cox’s portrayal, and is married in real life to Cox — urges strategy."

"The play is rich with concerns, levelling pragmatism against principle, faith against atheism, certainty against doubt, and touching on the depravity of war, the difficulties of making art under duress and the dangers of speaking truth to power. But despite such promising material, it takes a strangely long time to get anywhere. The first act meanders by, and the second offers a very slow crescendo to the climactic face-off."

"Cox is great throughout, bringing pathos and passion to this ageing, mortal man with a transcendent gift. But sadly the play itself only sometimes hits the high notes."

Theatre Royal Haymarket:"Brian Cox’s compassionate portrait of JS Bach enlivens this clunky historical drama"

"Oliver Cotton’s The Score essentially sets Brian Cox’s grouchy, loveable and deeply devout JS Bach against Stephen Hagan’s capricious atheist 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."

"Still, we’re here to see Brian Cox’s Bach, and the Succession star gives it heart, guts and soul as a genius whose grumpy old manness is offset by an unshakeable belief that God speaks to us all through the world."

"I wonder if a more interesting director might have given Cotton’s text a bit more spark and depth. Cox lends his scenes an air of gravitas and profundity. But elsewhere, Trevor Nunn’s production keeps things simple, sometimes excruciatingly so – the bits where Cox mimes playing the harpsichord look genuinely terrible. The Score is solid enough commercial entertainment, but really it's a second tier show built around one top tier cast member."

Theatre Royal Haymarket:"Brian Cox gives a mighty scowling performance as Bach in The Score at Theatre Royal Haymarket"

"The Succession star moulds Bach into a warmongering king, but this play has too much padding"

"That familiarity and old fashionedness aren’t a bad thing. It’s actually quite fun, and pretty unusual, seeing a proper old period piece, wigs and all, on the West End stage. But while the play has lofty ambitions and director Trevor Nunn knows how to stage them grandly, and despite a towering Cox as the main man, unlike Bach’s music too often the whole thing clunks and flounders."

"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."

"Surrounding these finer moments is a lot of chat and unnecessary noodling, like someone sitting at a piano and working out what to play: a snatch of a toccata here, a bit of a partita there. Cotton prods interestingly at the idea of creating art under tyranny, and how you cling to morals when you’re the patron of a bloodthirsty king."

"It’s a play that could have done with sharp scissors before hitting the stage, certainly between its run in Bath and the West End."

Theatre Royal Haymarket: "Brian Cox is on song as a magnetic JS Bach"

"All of the composer’s eruptions and asides and emollient interludes alike are brilliantly conveyed by the Succession star, but Oliver Cotton’s play is flabby"

"All of Bach’s eruptions and asides and emollient interludes alike are conveyed with a rare magnetism. It’s a delight to see Cox in action. Yes, even in a disappointing piece of writing."

"... Oliver Cotton’s script, for all its promising debating points, is more like a polished first draft rather than the finished form. It could lose most of a first act that is really just a prelude to a chewier second act in which Bach and the king"

"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."

"... with Cox on full song, The Score is always interesting, even when it’s not convincing."

"Theatre Royal Bath: Brian Cox is magnetic as JS Bach in a clash of values"

"The Succession star excels in Oliver Cotton’s play about the meeting between the composer and Frederick the Great"

"The production is redeemed by its star billing in Brian Cox, who plays the genius musician with such magnetism that he almost singlehandedly saves this play."

"Even when the script is careening from period comedy to philosophical debate on doubt and salvation, Cox has the ability to dart from light to dark which the others can’t quite navigate."

"The composer’s relationship with Carl (Matthew Burns) contains tenderness but it is Cox’s scenes with Nicole Ansari-Cox, his real-life wife playing his fictional one, that blaze brightest. There is such ardent chemistry there that they smoulder even though their story is barely touched upon."

"Theatre Royal Bath: Brian Cox makes a formidable JS Bach"

"Brian Cox, the production’s big draw, exercises an immediate pull as the composer, but with sketchy material: big boots, gravel voice and bear hugs. Oh and a wig like an overused tea cosy. He and sharp Nicole Ansari-Cox – his on and offstage wife – are limited by a stately pace, with much repetition of inconsequential phrases. It is as if a tune designed for a flute were being played on an organ."

"Yet the evening grows. Robert Jones’s design – windows with beautiful slatted shadows, gilt-patterned doors – is handsome, evocative."

"... Cox gathers more and more resonance; his authority is the greater because he manages big notes without bellowing; his anger is forceful but without hot air. He embodies a man in which morality and music are at one. Well-tempered."

"Theatre Royal Bath: Brian Cox is gripping in shapeless drama"

"Brian Cox’s fine central performance is the saving grace of this underwritten period piece"

"Oliver Cotton’s shapeless script spins this historical footnote into a rambling meditation on ethics, inspiration and the clash between the ruthless rationalism of the Enlightenment with the inflexible absolutes of religion. Though the themes are compelling, they are inelegantly articulated, with much of the run time taken up with nebulous philosophising and stuffy conversations about musical notation."

"Brian Cox – fresh from his career-redefining role in HBO hit Succession – is never less than gripping as Bach. By turns cantankerous, gracious and thunderingly, righteously indignant, Cox deftly teases out the contradictions in the composer’s character. Despite his deeply held Christian beliefs, Bach is driven by a mighty ego and tormented by doubt, his faith badly shaken after witnessing the occupation of his home city by Frederick’s soldiers."

"Yet for a play in which music plays so central a part, Sophie Cotton’s sound design is unobtrusive, limited to a few sharp, jangling baroque chords between scenes."