Tue 29 Jun 2021 19.01 EDT
It is tempting to compare Bach & Sons with Peter Shafferâs Amadeus, as Nina Raine unpicks the difficult personality of another composer with genius in his veins who died, at least as it is portrayed here, with his musical light undimmed but as a failure in other ways.
The similarities end there. Raine presents a middle-aged Bach (Simon Russell Beale) with studiousness and teases out power battles between him and his sons Wilhelm (Douggie McMeekin) and Carl (Samuel Blenkin), but her research hangs heavily and leaves the drama often inert, speaking its ideas rather than enacting them.