MOVIE MUSIC UK

Original Review by Jonathan Broxton

Seize Them! is a British comedy directed by Curtis Vowell, written by Andy Riley, starring Bridgerton’s Nicola Coughlan and Sex Education’s Aimee Lou Wood, with a supporting cast of popular British TV comedy actors including Jessica Hynes and Nick Frost from Spaced, Lolly Adefope from Ghosts, and standup star James Acaster. The film is set in the Middle Ages and sees Wood playing the spoiled and entitled Queen Dagan, whose rule is overthrown in a popular revolution led by Humble Joan (Coughlan). Suddenly finding herself a fugitive in the land she once ruled, Dagan joins forces with her newly-unemployed but still loyal lady-in-waiting Shulmay (Adefope), and a peasant named Bobik (Frost) whose personal hygiene standards are somewhat lacking, and together the unlikely trio embarks on a voyage to win back her throne. The humor is silly and goofy and sometimes quite bawdy, and comes across as a sort of cross between Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Horrible Histories, but some of the reviews I have read have praised it for having its heart in the right place, and for being a rare female-centric take on the ‘medieval comedy’ trope.

The score for Seize Them! is by the Yorkshire-born English composer Rael Jones, who over the past few years has been building up a really nice career for himself in the British film and TV industry, but whose music for some reason has never really been taken up in film music fan circles. This is a shame, because on the whole I think his work is tremendous – his scores for the period dramas Suite Française and My Cousin Rachel impressed me greatly, with the former earning him an Emmy nomination, and his score for Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris was one of my favorite comedy scores of the year in 2022. Jones has also shown an interesting tendency to take more unconventional and modernistic approaches to scoring period pieces, especially on television, as his eclectic work on three seasons of Harlots, and his recent rock-inflected score for the Amazon Prime series My Lady Jane, attest.

For Seize Them! Jones went down a slightly more traditional route, employing the Elmer Bernstein philosophy of writing (mostly) serious music for comedies, the straight-faced nature of which usually makes the humor funnier. His score is a superb piece of medieval/renaissance pastiche, written mostly for the full orchestra but augmented with an array of period-specific instruments ranging from recorders to what sound like lutes, sackbuts, hurdy-gurdys, and harpsichords, as well as some specialist percussion items.

However what’s interesting is that, in a manner similar to Harlots and My Lady Jane, several cues in Seize Them! could almost be described as having the musical mindset of a pop song, translated to a medieval instrumental ensemble – the rhythmic ideas and the way the instruments combine feel much more modern than one would have expected for a film set so long ago, and if that’s something that appeals to you, then this score could be right up your alley.

The main theme, “Seize Them!,” is a lively renaissance-style dance with a bouncy, bold, boisterous central recorder melody over a hypnotic and percussive string ostinato, that is really quite outstanding. It feels like a modern reworking of the music you would hear at a renaissance faire, and is just terrific. The second cue, “Body Slinging,” is the piece that first made me think of what a modern pop song translated to a medieval instrumental ensemble would sound like; it’s led by an upbeat and dance-like recorder melody, which is then transferred to a lute in the subsequent “Walk Like a Bobik”.

William Summers’s recorder takes center stage again in “Incredible Hunter,” although this time the recorder is underpinned with a more dramatic and masculine string pulse. The increase in drama continues in “Humble Joan,” the music for Nicola Coughlan’s revolutionary character, which features explosions of booming brass underpinned with shrill strings and bone-rattle percussion, sounds which are intended to be imposing and overwhelming.

“Babytooth” introduces a new sound to the score: eerie, moody electronica and soft ethereal wordless voices accompanied by the drone of a set of gamelan bowls. The piece is lovely, and at times quite mystical, reminding me of an instrumental that Enya or Clannad might have written in the 1980s. The music does become more compelling in the second half of the cue, but then later in “Snail of Time” the unusual, experimental, layered vocals and bowls return to excellent effect.

“Titting Balls” starts as another pretty renaissance dance, lively and energetic, but then becomes a more dramatic and heroic march for the larger orchestra in its second half, full of determination and purpose. The way the harpsichord textures are given prominence above the darker orchestral lines is really interesting, and reminds me a little of the way John Barry used the instrument in his spy thrillers of the 1960s. The first half of “The Kings” has an intentionally anachronistic sound featuring heavy and dense electric guitars, but the second half is an impressive modernistic action sequence which pairs throbbing brasses with bold percussion patterns and string ostinatos. “Manwolf” features some dramatic scoring for the medieval ensemble – harp, bone percussion, and cimbalom textures – all underpinned with dark, brooding orchestral lines and electronic sound design elements.

“I Was a Bastard” is the film’s emotional high point, a moment of self-awareness and revelation as Queen Dagan puts her spoiled past behind her and realizes what her true destiny is; Jones scores this moment with some emotional string work, dramatic and weighty, which has a sense of loss combined with a new sense of purpose. Then the conclusive “Seize Them! – Much Rejoicing” offers a reprise of the renaissance-style dance from the opening cue, ending the score on a high note of positivity and warmth.

The film itself features some additional cues and songs – “Queen Fritha’s Song,” “Bobik’s Song,” “Queen Dagan’s Anthem” – by composer Mahuia Bridgman-Cooper which are not featured on the album, which is a shame because the score itself only runs for around 17 minutes, and it’s always better to get a fuller picture of all the different musical elements of the film, especially when the album can more than sustain it.

That one issue aside, Seize Them! remains an enormously fun and entertaining diversion. In terms of tone and approach its closest cousin is probably Steve Jablonsky’s score for the 2011 Natalie Portman/James Franco movie Your Highness, and so anyone with fond memories of that score will likely find this one appealing too. Beyond that superficial similarity Seize Them! actually feels like something fresh and new that I haven’t really heard before. The way that Jones combines renaissance-style medieval instruments with modern dramatic orchestral scoring and the sensibility of contemporary pop and rock music is refreshing and engaging, and makes Seize Them! one of 2024’s unexpected comedic delights.

Buy the Seize Them! soundtrack from the Movie Music UK Store

Track Listing:

• Seize Them! (0:52)
• Body Slinging (1:42)
• Walk Like a Bobik (0:53)
• Incredible Hunter (1:28)
• Humble Joan (1:27)
• Babytooth (1:44)
• Titting Balls (1:06)
• Snail of Time (0:48)
• The Kings (1:15)
• Manwolf (2:00)
• I Was a Bastard (2:08)
• Seize Them! – Much Rejoicing (1:31)

Plaza Mayor Company SERG350 (2024)

Running Time: 17 minutes 02 seconds

Music composed and conducted by Rael Jones. Orchestrations by Rael Jones. Featured musical soloist William Summers. Recorded and mixed by Al Green. Edited by Justin Kwok. Album produced by Rael Jones.