A man hides away in his attic grappling with a maths problem he thought he had solved but hadn’t, until he finds the answer. Does that sound like promising subject matter for theatre? And … an eclectic score combining in just 90 minutes such a variety of styles I am not sure I could count them if I used all my fingers and all my toes – does that sound like a recipe for success or a musical hotchpotch?
Well, writers Joshua Rosenblum and Joanne Sydney Lesser must have relished a challenge almost as much as did the hero of their tale, Daniel Keane (based on the real-life Andrew Wiles); and, just like him, they succeeded beyond all expectations. The result is a musical pulsating with life and drama from start to finish. The story is gripping, the characters larger than life. The music slips and segues between musical styles seamlessly, except where it suits the story to do otherwise - hats off to John Skeen and Fred Tyrrell for their deft arrangement and orchestration, and to the utterly superb band of musicians who demonstrated such impressive skill across such challenging diversity.
Daniel’s imagination was fired at the age of ten by the story in a library book of Fermat’s scribbled marginal note which had puzzled mathematicians for 350 years: “xn + yn = zn has no whole-number solutions where n is greater than 2: I have discovered a truly marvellous proof of this, which this margin is not large enough to contain”. The greatest mathematical minds had been baffled by this challenge to find a proof; but Daniel was determined that one day he would succeed where they had failed. Lois Heslop gave a perfect portrayal of the character of mid-life Daniel, mild-mannered but with a tenacious inner dedication, bemused by the unaccustomed limelight of publicity; and sang in appropriately beautiful pure clear tones his paean to “the Beauty of Numbers”, a vocal love letter to the “perfection of numbers that mankind can never attain”.
Fermat himself travels through time to visit our hero (“How did you get into this attic? – let alone this century?”) and after a lively musical battle of words and wits, transports him to the “Aftermath”, a sort of living Mathematical Hall of Fame peopled by Pythagoras, Euclid, Sir Isaac Newton and Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss. They are strongly reminiscent of the squabbling gods on Mount Olympus in Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld, initially standing on ceremony and striking poses to impress their mortal visitor but ultimately unable to resist the temptation to involve themselves in current earthly affairs. Here, Daniel learns to his consternation that his “proof contains a big fat hole”. Siddiq Islam excelled as the roguish, insouciant, ebullient Fermat, mischievously taunting and teasing Daniel. He was uproariously abetted by the lively team of Great Minds reminding Daniel that time is running out and Maths is a “Young Man’s Game”.
Meanwhile, Daniel’s supportive but long-suffering wife Anna (Isabella Diaz Pascual) is waiting for him to come down from the attic. She sees Fermat as the “third person in our marriage” – in an unusual variation of the eternal triangle, her household is a ménage à trois, comprising a man, a woman and an intellectual obsession personified as a mathematician from beyond the grave. The audience lapped up Bella’s performances, from her poignant “All I Want for My Birthday” to her raunchy rendition of “Math Widow”, and of course “I’ll Always Be There”, the climactic pas-de-trois eponymous tango.
Fermat’s Last Tango was a triumph. I feel very fortunate to have seen it. Staging a musical about Andrew Wiles in the Andrew Wiles Building might seem like an obvious choice; but it is now 30 years since he made public his first version of the proof; 23 years since the first production of the musical in New York; ten years since the Andrew Wiles Building was opened; and this is now the first production of Fermat’s Last Tango in the UK. May there be many more!
It was wonderful to experience in its natural home this musical which celebrates - with immense wit and humour - the mathematical mission and mindset; the intense emotional excitement of mathematical endeavour; the inherent beauty of the subject to the mathematical mind, which values simplicity and elegance above all else, and senses a beauty in numbers and patterns as awe-inspiring as that in music, poetry, or any other creative art. Fermat’s Last Tango makes a perfect marriage of maths and music. It has clearly been a highly popular project – dozens of student mathematicians have been involved in its genesis, and the enthusiasm of the audience was palpable throughout the performance. You certainly don’t need much in the way of mathematical knowledge to enjoy this musical but the mathematicians did particularly relish the mathematical references and jokes. Thanks to the directorial/production team for bringing this to the life: especially to Anubhab Ghosal, Maria Matthis and Mario Marcos Losada.
Wouldn’t it be a marvellous scheme to put this on a three-year loop?
In the meantime … a mystery or a challenge remains. The proof published by Andrew Wiles used modern maths which did not exist in Fermat’s lifetime: so, did Fermat himself indeed have a “truly marvellous proof”? And, if so, what could it possibly be...?