Fiddler on the Roof West End Reviews

Adam Dannheisser forgoes the showmanship that’s usually associated with the benevolent patriarch for a line-up of dad jokes and winks thrown at the audience. He towers over everybody, acutely sardonic yet suitably sombre. Dannheisser introduces a d...

Adam Dannheisser forgoes the showmanship that’s usually associated with the benevolent patriarch for a line-up of dad jokes and winks thrown at the audience. He towers over everybody, acutely sardonic yet suitably sombre. Dannheisser introduces a devoted, profound man who loves his family and secretly always seeks his wife’s approval. It’s Lara Pulver’s rebuttals as Golde that make his outdated worldviews and backhanded misogyny sting a little less than they would otherwise. She is a force of nature, revealing a powerful voice and an arresting presence.

The quality of Jordan Fein’s wonderful, emotional production is that it perfectly holds the balance of Fiddler on the Roof, neither tilting towards saccharine nor bitterness, towards schmaltz or politics. It honours the care with which book writer ...

The quality of Jordan Fein’s wonderful, emotional production is that it perfectly holds the balance of Fiddler on the Roof, neither tilting towards saccharine nor bitterness, towards schmaltz or politics. It honours the care with which book writer Joseph Stein, lyricist Sheldon Harnick and composer Jerry Bock first created the show in 1964, under the passionate ferocity of their director Jerome Robbins.

Fein’s winning approach is to strip away anything remotely sentimental in the storytelling, which can sometimes curdle into kitsch. Far from robbing the show of emotion, it allows audiences to feel the vivid sentiment coursing throughout Joseph Ste...

Fein’s winning approach is to strip away anything remotely sentimental in the storytelling, which can sometimes curdle into kitsch. Far from robbing the show of emotion, it allows audiences to feel the vivid sentiment coursing throughout Joseph Stein’s book and Bock and Harnick’s beloved score.

Fein, who co-directed ‘sexy Oklahoma!’ when it came to London last year and helped strip it of any hokey old associations, eradicates the kitsch here, too. Yes it’s funny – Adam Dannheisser’s Tevye still cracks jokes and talks to the audien...

Fein, who co-directed ‘sexy Oklahoma!’ when it came to London last year and helped strip it of any hokey old associations, eradicates the kitsch here, too. Yes it’s funny – Adam Dannheisser’s Tevye still cracks jokes and talks to the audience, though he’s more dad-funny than the kind of showman-comedian that Tevye often becomes – and yes it’s faithful, but this is a serious production.

Choreographer Julia Cheng keeps the best of Jerome Robbins’s work (like the famous bottle dance) while adding grit: one drunken reveller does a split jump off a table while spitting vodka. Mark Aspinall’s superb orchestrations find new details in...

Choreographer Julia Cheng keeps the best of Jerome Robbins’s work (like the famous bottle dance) while adding grit: one drunken reveller does a split jump off a table while spitting vodka. Mark Aspinall’s superb orchestrations find new details in the kletzmer-esque score, while onstage violinist Raphael Papo and Bristow, who supplies plaintive clarinet-playing, add to the spine-tingling atmosphere.

The paterfamilias of this story can be stoic, wry, fierce, anguished, uproarious, pious. The appealing Adam Dannheisser goes for something between all these things — not entirely convincingly. His strongest suit is a sitcom frazzlement — this is ...

The paterfamilias of this story can be stoic, wry, fierce, anguished, uproarious, pious. The appealing Adam Dannheisser goes for something between all these things — not entirely convincingly. His strongest suit is a sitcom frazzlement — this is Reb Tevye meets Ross Geller from Friends. Lara Pulver brings quiet dignity rather than shrewishness to Tevye’s wife, Golde, and Dan Wolff is a triumphantly nerdy Motel. The actresses playing Tevye’s three eldest daughters grow in stature as the night goes on, and Liv Andrusier’s Tzeitel gets to show her musical-theatre chops in a brilliantly grand guignol staging of Tevye’s Dream.