Fiddler on the Roof - "the enduring songs take you on an emotional rollercoaster that is a joy"

After a sold-out successful run at the Chocolate Factory, this beautiful moving production of Fiddler on the Roof transfers to the Playhouse on the other side of the river for a thirty-two-week run and expands to fill the venue. The transformation of the stalls into the rural Russian village with a thrust stage is exquisite and creates a perfect setting for the emotional dramatic tale of a changing society with traditions breaking down and love blossoming. 

In some ways the structure of Joseph Stein's book and Jerry Bock's music creates a challenge for the director and cast. We are served with the best three songs in the first thirty minutes with the opening "Tradition" followed with "Matchmaker, Matchmaker" and "If I were a rich man" and nothing that follows quite matches these wonderful songs. They do elegantly set up the situation and the central characters and their relationship, so you start to care about them as a family with the central roles of Mama and Papa. The slow breakdown of tradition and matchmaking and the revolution spreading through Russia is the context for rest of the musical. But as the story gets bleaker, so the emotional connection with Tevye's family grows. In Trevor Nunn's direction he brings out every comic moment and every heart wrenching breakdown in the traditions. 

At the heart of the show is Andy Nyman as Tevye who holds centre stage especially in his conversations with God and in weighing up the arguments with great comic timing and shrugs yet also portrays the torment and anguish he feels. He delivers his songs well although largely speaking in tune. Opposite him is the wonderful Judy Kuhn as Golde his loyal long-suffering wife and together they deliver "Do you love me?" delightfully. His oldest daughters Tzeitel (Molly Osborne) and Hodel (Harriet Bunton) stand out in a very large ensemble cast.

Nunn's groupings are excellent and the choreography with Matt Cole recreating some of Jerome Robbins original routines look amazing in the big set piece moments like the Wedding and Bottle dance that ends Act One or the drunken dance in the bar in "To Life". The band slips down the steps from their raised platform to accompany the dancers and create magical pictures for the audience.

 The lighting design by Tim Lutkin skilfully illuminates Robert Jones's village roof tops and creates the atmospheric setting from the beautiful Sunset through the trees to the bleak winter of the finale. I don't think I have seen a more effective lighting design in the West End for years.

This may be a story of Jewish oppression in the last century but it's messages of love and hope in the face of adversity resonate strongly in today's troubled society and the enduring songs take you on an emotional rollercoaster that is a joy.

Nick Wayne 

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