History has never awarded an entirely clean slate to the great conductor Wilhelm Furtwngler for his conduct during the years of Nazi rule in Germany. He stayed there when so many others in the artistic community left, prospering mightily as Hitler's favourite music-maker.

Was he sympathetic to the Fhrer's views? Did he turn a blind eye to the evils of the Third Reich to preserve his own skin? Was he actively working to subvert the regime? Or was he just very naive -- convinced that music remained entirely separate from politics, and that its magic could brighten lives marred by the horrors around them?

All these fascinating questions are considered in Ronald Harwood's gripping play Taking Sides, at the Oxford Playhouse. No emphatic answer is supplied to any of them, though most members of the audience will conclude, I think, that it is to the last one that Harwood offers a tentative 'yes'.

Publicity about the play suggested to me that it was essentially a two-hander, with the conductor locked throughout in a battle of wits with his US army interrogator involved in the "deNazification' programme. Certainly there is much of this during the two hours of the drama, with Furtwngler captured in all his patrician disdain -- unrepentant; indeed insisting there was nothing to repent -- by the admirable Julian Glover, and Neil Pearson on scorching form as he lays into his 'suspect'.

Before him, Major Steve Arnold is convinced, is a man who typifies the evil of Nazi rule and who must share responsibility for horrors such as Bergen-Belsen that he has witnessed marching in with the liberating Army. This conviction is reflected in the insulting forcefulness of his questioning.

But this is far from being a two-man show. There is a tremendous performance from Tom Harper, as Arnold's young sidekick, Lieut David Wills. He is a Jew who has lost both his parents in the Holocaust but who will not attribute to Furtwngler -- whose music he reveres -- any share in the blame. Too good to be true? Perhaps. But a fine character study nonetheless.

Likewise those of Tanya Ronder, as Arnold's young German secretary -- her father a much-praised opponent of the Nazis -- who is also sympathetic to the conductor, and John McEnery, as a second violinist in the Berlin Philharmonic with a dark secret to hide.

Excellent though it is in many ways, the play -- directed by Deborah Bruce -- suffers from the difficulty associated with any piece of 'factional' writing. Watching it, you find yourself constantly asking: "Was it really like this?", and the fact that you know that it wasn't slightly detracts from the fullest enjoyment of the piece.