The Score
Closing: April 26, 2025The Score - 2025 West End History , Info & More
Theatre Royal Haymarket
18 Suffolk Street London SW1Y 4HT London
Legendary stage and screen actor BRIAN COX (HBO’s multi-award-winning Succession) stars as Johann Sebastian Bach in Oliver Cotton’s new play, 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.
Brian Cox’s glittering career has spanned more than sixty years, garnering numerous awards, working with the most esteemed theatre companies and renowned Hollywood and TV directors. Twice Olivier Award winner for Best Actor, his portrayal in the HBO hit series Succession has won him a Golden Globe award and Emmy nominations.
He is joined in the cast by Nicole Ansari-Cox who studied at the prestigious Actors’ Studio in New York and has starred regularly on stage and screen in the UK and the US. Her major credits include Deadwood, The Biographer and Blumenthal on screen, and starring in Tom Stoppard’s Rock’n’Roll at the Royal Court and on Broadway.
Former artistic director of the National Theatre and Royal Shakespeare Company, Trevor Nunn’s multi-award winning repertoire ranges from Les Misérables to The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby.
__Assisted Performances__
Captioned Performance - Wednesday 16th April 7.30pm
Audio Described Performance - Wednesday 9th April 7.30pm
The Score - 2025 - West End Cast
FEATURED REVIEWS FOR The Score
Oliver Cotton’s drama, directed by Trevor Nunn, runs at Theatre Royal Haymarket until 26 April
6 / 10
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.
An old-fashioned production with an ambiguous raison d’être that's ultimately just a vehicle for anecdotal politics and bite-size philosophy.
4 / 10
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.
by Aliya Al-Hassan - February 28, 2025
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.
by Cindy Marcolina - February 28, 2025
Transferring from a successful run in Bath a few years ago, Oliver Cotton wants to marry politics and art to work his way up to the encounter between an ageing Johann Sebastian Bach and Frederick II of Prussia. The marketing makes it out to be an explosive meeting between church and state, between a god-fearing, scripture-quoting composer and an atheist, belligerent, ruthless monarch. That’s not exactly how it goes and the theatricality of the event is rather underwhelming. Trevor Nunn directs Brian Cox in a lengthy and inconsistent script that swiftly turns into a vehicle for anecdotal politics and bite-size philosophy. Too long into the action, we discover that the catalyst is Bach’s indomitable rage. He found out that a blind young girl was brutally raped by the military and he chooses to hold the king accountable.
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