Fiddler on the Roof

New Theatre, Cardiff

Fiddler on the Roof returns to Cardiff in the acclaimed Barbican revival, and what strikes you first in Jordan Fein’s production is its sheer immersive confidence.

The show’s source are various short stories from the Yiddish playwright-author Sholem Aleichem and was made most famous by the 1971 film telling the story of Tevye, a poor Jewish milkman living in the Ukrainian village of Anatevka, a typical shetl in the Pale of Settlement of Imperial Russia.

Before a note is played, Tom Scutt’s pared-back design folds the audience into Anatevka’s fragile world, a place where humour and hardship sit side by side and where every creak of the wooden floor seems to matter. It’s a staging that trusts the material – and crucially, allows the music to take its natural, beating-heart position.

Matthew Woodyatt’s Tevye is at the centre of this,........

© South Wales Argus