The Score - Review

Theatre Royal, Bath

****

Written by Oliver Cotton

Directed by Trevor Nunn

Brian Cox

The Score is a bold historical tale that makes for some exceptional drama. Brian Cox plays Johann Sebastian Bach who not only was one of the greatest composers of the Baroque period but was also a deeply spiritual man, fiercely proud of his native Silesia (now a part of Germany) and especially his home city of Leipzig. 

Set over a short period of time in Bach’s latter years, a time when the enlightened expansionist Frederick The Great ruled neighbouring Prussia and subsequently conquered Silesia, the play crafts an ingenious narrative around an actual visit that the 62 year-old Bach paid to Frederick in Potsdam, Prussia in 1747, some 3 years before the composer’s death. The play’s first half largely sets the scene and establishes the history of the time. Oliver Cotton has a lot to cram in to his story and there are times when act one drags, making the interval a much appreciated respite. 

The second half however, that opens in the economically but magnificently created Potsdam Palace, sizzles with a gripping dramatic intensity. Matthew Burns plays Bach’s son Carl a composer in Frederick’s court, who finds himself at the heart of an intriguing wager as to whether his father will be able to fashion a 3-part fugue drawn from a theme of Frederick’s creation. No spoilers here, but Cotton crafts a dramatic counterpoint between composer, court and monarch that has to rank amongst the best writing seen this year. Not only is there this nail-biting bet being played out, but when the music is done and dusted the elderly Bach takes the king to task for the appalling conduct of his Prussian troops in the composer’s beloved Silesia.

There are timeless echoes in Cotton’s narrative. As Bach describes the rape of a blind teenage girl in Leipzig by a trio of Frederick’s soldiers, the barbarity chimes with the horrific atrocities in Israel that have grabbed our recent headlines. And as Frederick speaks of the rights of Prussia to reclaim its neighbouring territories, there is a chilling foresight as to the expansionist supremacy that underlay Weimar and then Nazi Germany in the 20th century. 

Cox is magnificent in his role, capturing not only Bach’s genius and pride in his faith and in his homeland, but also his succumbing to the frailties of his later years. His is a virtuoso performance of nuance, perception and perfectly pitched rage that sees the actor on stage for virtually all of the first half and most of the second.

Trevor Nunn has assembled a fine company around his leading man. Cox’s real life missus, Nicole Ansari-Cox plays Bach’s wife Anna, Stephen Hagan’s Frederick channels a far shrewder (and more vicious) take on the bumbling monarchs that Hugh Laurie captured so cleverly in the various Blackadder TV series of yesteryear. 

Robert Jones has designed the piece as ever, immaculately, helped in no small measure by Karen Large’s costume work and Campbell Young’s wig work. A nod too to Sophie Cotton whose contribution to the evening’s sound design and music is exquisite.

This is a brave and bold piece from Cotton that in its style makes a fine tilt at the honours garnered by Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus. Only on for a ridiculously short run, it demands a transfer to London and a wider audience.

Runs until 28th October

Photo credit: Manuel Harlan

North v South - Review

Certificate 18


****

Written and directed by Steven Nesbit

Freema Agyeman

North v South from Steven Nesbit is a British gangster movie that combines a sharp and witty script with some beautifully conceived violence, all performed by a cast that is to die for.

As John Claridge and Vic Clarke, crime bosses of England’s rival North and South regions meet to hammer out a partnership, Gary a psychopathic lieutenant from the South, kills the wrong man (who’s dressed up as a clown, don’t ask) and from then on it’s all, brutally, downhill. 

Both sides have traitors in the camp and for the most part Nesbit keeps the tale-telling tight. The story wobbles with a slightly implausible Romeo and Juliet theme  that centres around a smouldering Charlotte Hope, but overall the tale combines wit and grit in equal part. 

Much of the pleasure of North v South comes from its awesome line-up. Steven Berkoff’s Clarke proves once again that no-one does a bigger, better or balder Cockney bastard than this roughest of East End diamonds. That Keith Allen is his henchman only adds weight to the film’s sassy dialog, whilst Brad Moore as the treacherous Gary sets himself up for one of the most spectacular deaths in recent British cinema.

The Northerners are led by another screen giant, the weathered and wily Bernard Hill. Mixing menace with charm, Hill’s firm includes a shrewd Oliver Cotton as the brains behind the muscle, along with an ingenious casting choice that sees Freema Agyeman leap from some sensational TV performances to date, to play Penny, a sassy, educated and  multi lingual thug, as violent as she is stylish.

There is a sensational cameo from Dom Monot as transvestite assassin Gustave, whilst a novel touch sees an impressive performance from young Sydney Wade as Sam. Witnessing her clown-dad’s murder early on, her subsequent childish fumbling as she learns her way around a hi-velocity rifle gives rise to an on-screen killing that is as hilarious as it is brutal and with just a hint of Tarantino too. 

Beautifully photographed by Kyle Heslop, Neil Athale’s music also adds a dimension.

North v South is brutal, bloody and brilliant. One of the year’s classier Brit-flicks. 

Steven Berkoff and Charlotte Hope

In cinemas nationwide

Daytona - Theatre Review

Park Theatre, London

****

Written by Oliver Cotton
Directed by David Grindley

John Bowe and Harry Shearer

Daytona is a cleverly crafted tale of love amidst denial and despair. A play that never leaves the 1986 Brooklyn apartment of Joe and Elli, married septuagenarians with a passion for ballroom dancing, lives lived almost to the full, with happinesses and tragedies amassed over the years. Theirs is a childless marriage and for all the polite warmth and fondness they show each other in the opening act, there is a pervading sense of sadness and "getting-by" that seems to be being papered over. When Elli leaves to visit a friend who is working on her ball gown, no sooner has she departed then the doorbell sounds and Billy, Joe's brother who has been self-estranged for thirty years arrives bedraggled. The tale that then unfolds is remarkable, gripping and above all, sensational yet still remaining credible.We learn that the all three characters are Holocaust survivors and that Billy whilst holidaying in Florida the previous week, had recognised an elderly concentration camp guard and war criminal whom he thought had long since been executed. 

The plot unfolds but never unravels and to reveal too much would be to spoil. Suffice to say that Oliver Cotton has written a piece of remarkable sensitivity, throwing complex family dynamics into the harshest of spotlights, whilst also laying bare the damage that the Holocaust caused to the minds of so many who survived its horrors.

Harry Shearer is Joe, who for the most part plays a weary Brooklynese accountant, getting by in managing his demons. Initially little more than a dramatic foil to his wife and brother, it is in the final act, when his demons run amok, that his performance as a man who admits to a lifetime of domestic denial is delicately fleshed out. 

Maureen Lipman is Elli. Her journey since the War is perhaps the most painful to hear of. Emotionally vulnerable in her youth and clearly scarred from enduring so much pain, hers has been the journey back from mental illness. Lipman's dialogs with both brothers, that start mundanely but which crescendo to agonising accusations and revelations, are heart breaking.

Maureen Lipman

The tour de force performance of the night though rests with John Bowe’s Billy. A man who has built the last 30 years of his life around a framework of lies and of a total denial of his past, yet who ultimately finds within himself a resolve of massive strength, that leads him to commit a crime of honourable recklessness. The role is draining, with monologues recounting Billy's life that are relentless, yet Bowe marches through both acts of the play with an admirable defiance. His is surely one of the finest performances to be found on a London stage this year.

David Grindley's pinpoint direction picks apart the subtleties of the human condition, whilst Cotton's writing at times echoes the scalpel like incisiveness of Arthur Miller. Daytona is a fine study on love, self-discovery, and above all, a glorious albeit damaged sense of survival that emerged from the ashes of the Holocaust. A play that should not be missed.

Runs until August 18th and then on tour