It is said that no composer will ever live to see their ninth symphony performed or even survive the composing of it. A lost sheet of manuscript provides the opportunity for Nathaniel Burnham’s final work to be completed, but at what cost?

I must confess to being a complete philistine when it comes to classic music, so this is the first time I’ve come across this superstition. It is of course blithering nonsense, conjured up by Gustav Mahler’s tangled psyche after he noticed that neither Beethoven or Schubert completed their tenth symphonies, although as fate would have it he did indeed succumb to the “curse” after having tried to cheat it, as the episode explains.

We begin with a disturbing introduction as we see Burnham (Eddie Marsan, whose huge list of credits include last year’s The Power) desperately attempting to complete his work on what turns out to be the last night of his life. Flash forward some years and we’re introduced to Reece Shearsmith’s Jonah, a frustrated composer turned piano tuner and a huge admirer of Burnham, booked by Mrs Burnham (Game of Thrones’ Natalie Dormer) to work on her late husband’s Bechstein piano. It’s not long before the possibility of piecing together her husband’s final work becomes a possibility.

Rounding out the cast we have Steve Pemberton as Mr Burnham’s lawyer and Mrs Burnham’s “friend” Dickie van Aas, and Hayley Squires (Great Expectations) as the maid, Devonshire (source of a peculiar running gag where Jonah keeps calling her by the name of the wrong county). Finally James Swanton (The First Omen) plays a character I won’t reveal here.

This is a peculiar little episode – it’s scary in places and takes its premise seriously but is largely played as a comedy. There’s the aforementioned running gag plus little bits of innuendo and “business” which help give life to the characters but don’t impinge on the story. Natalie Dormer lights up the screen as usual and Marson is probably as heavyweight an actor as they’ve ever had on the show.

Verdict: An unusual premise that I wasn’t previously aware of and a top-notch cast makes for an enjoyable and occasionally scary little oddity 8/10

Andy Smith