Tag Archives: Carys McQueen

FIDDLER ON THE ROOF

★★★★★

Barbican

FIDDLER ON THE ROOF

Barbican

★★★★★

“Fein’s direction and Julia Cheng’s muscular choreography is marked by sublime precision”

In its Barbican transfer, director Jordan Fein’s revelatory Fiddler on the Roof retains the elemental power that made it a five-star phenomenon in Regent’s Park. He strips the beloved 1964 musical of its nostalgic veneer to expose something more potent and contemporary: a raw and resonant meditation on tradition, displacement, and the endurance of community.

Fun, too, in case there should be a misunderstanding. Great fun.

Set in 1905 in the menaced Jewish shtetl of Anatevka before the Russian revolution, Fiddler follows Tevye, a weary but devout milkman, as his five daughters begin to choose love over arranged marriage, and the outside world encroaches upon his way of life.

Anchored by songs like Tradition, If I Were a Rich Man, and Sunrise, Sunset, it’s long been cherished for its warmth and wit. But Fein’s version – subtly but decisively restaged – asks more interesting and topical questions too: what happens when the traditions that once sustained a community begin to fracture under the weight of change? What is the true impact of displacement, of a people menaced from their homes?

Where the musical was once critiqued as “shtetl sentimentalism,” this staging leans into pared-down grit, stoic humour, and haunting lyricism. There is a modern feel to the witty script – and to the resolutely ambiguous ending.

Tom Scutt’s gorgeous design is emblematic of the approach: instead of quaint rooftops, we see cornstalks uprooted and suspended above the stage, evoking both harvest and trauma. The titular fiddler (a magnetic Raphael Papo) becomes not just a symbol but a shadowy companion, echoing Tevye’s inner world with eerie cadenzas and an eventual duet with Hannah Bristow’s Chava – whose marriage outside the faith breaks her father’s beleaguered heart.

The huge cast is potent, using impressive numbers to magnificent effect, a dream sequence appearing like a fully-realised Hollywood dance number. Meanwhile, Adam Dannheisser’s Tevye is no grandstanding showman but a wry, tired father trying – and failing – to hold his family together through reason, prayer, and rueful monologues. His comedic timing is sharp and he plays out with great relish the classic sitcom paradigm of the father and husband who declares his dominance only to have it slyly eroded by the headstrong women around him.

But it’s his gentleness that resonates most, particularly opposite Lara Pulver’s commanding Golde, whose grounded and wary pragmatism keeps the domestic scenes taut and touching.

Fein’s direction and Julia Cheng’s muscular choreography is marked by sublime precision. The Bottle Dance at Tzeitel’s wedding is performed under a canopy that rises and falls. On top of that precarious canopy, and ominous, the fiddler makes clear that everything is poised on the brink of a mighty disaster. The Russians are coming.

The cast functions as a true community, especially in the spine-tingling finale as they sing Anatevka, their voices braided with longing, resilience, and bitter clarity. In a final image, the toppled milk cart, beautifully lit, appears like an oil painting. Everywhere, indeed, there is beauty and catastrophe.

One of Fein’s many achievements lies in his refusal to oversell modern parallels. The production trusts its audience to make the connections – to recognise in Anatevka’s forced dispersal the long shadow of global displacement. It neither moralises nor rants; it simply tells the story with integrity and emotional intelligence.

For all its sumptuous visual invention and musical flair, Fiddler is most powerful in its silences: a father cut off from his daughter, a community carrying candles into the dark, a fiddler playing an aching lament.

A joyous and moving triumph from beginning to end.



FIDDLER ON THE ROOF

Barbican

Reviewed on 3rd June 2025

by Giles Broadbent

Photography by Marc Brenner

 

 


 

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

THE BUDDHA OF SUBURBIA | ★★★★ | October 2024
KISS ME, KATE | ★★★★ | June 2024
LAY DOWN YOUR BURDENS | ★★★ | November 2023

 

 

FIDDLER ON THE ROOF

FIDDLER ON THE ROOF

FIDDLER ON THE ROOF

The Threepenny Opera

The Threepenny Opera

★★★

Cockpit Theatre

THE THREEPENNY OPERA at the Cockpit Theatre

★★★

The Threepenny Opera

“A promising opening, that isn’t quite sustained throughout.”

We walk into the ‘Factory of Plays’. A kind of warped bandstand sits centre stage, with mannequin torsos circling it; grotesque and absurdist, some attached to rope like an umbilical cord. Or a hangman’s noose. The front rows of the auditorium are littered with musical instruments. An accordion, trombone, trumpet, cello, clarinet. A banjo here, a Hawaiian guitar there. The space feels abandoned as though some frenetic activity has been interrupted. The truncated figures, like a troupe of mute Frankenstein’s creatures, waiting to be brought back to life. Enter two inventors, in white lab coats, followed by a cast of actor musicians in high-vis jackets.

This is the premise behind the OVO Theatre’s interpretation of the Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill ‘play with music’. Translated by Robert David MacDonald (dialogue) and Jeremy Sams (lyrics), it adopts many ‘Brechtian’ characteristics. There is no fourth wall whatsoever here as we witness the action being created in front of us. Characters step out of the narrative to talk to us. A phone is borrowed, a beer bottle grabbed and swigged from (oh, how far we have thankfully moved on from the specious sensitivities of the pandemic), scenes are interrupted by metallic tones and bizarre announcements. We are never quite sure where we are. There is something Orwellian. Dystopian. Yet grounded in present day politics. A Clockwork Orange meets Boys from the Blackstuff. A promising opening, that isn’t quite sustained throughout.

Macheath appears, chimera-like from within a cage to the strains of his signature tune. It is uncertain whether he is being created or born. He emerges savvy and streetwise, but with a menace that is too soft at the edges. Peter Watts is clearly enjoying the role, initially channelling Harold Steptoe but then allowing his natural charisma steers him into more dangerous territory. However, the sense of true danger is never quite realised in Adam Nichols’ staging. He allows the slapstick to overshadow nuance.

“Musically it is spot on”

Mark Carlisle’s Peachum has a gravitas as Macheath’s nemesis, aided by Annette Yeo’s feisty Mrs Peachum. Their tentative hold over the beggars of London is challenged when their daughter Polly (Emily Panes) marries Macheath. Panes dresses Polly in innocence – a veil that is easily torn by Macheath’s unscrupulous womanising, allowing her to reveal the dormant steeliness. Panes has one of the stronger singing voices. Although the cast comprises an all singing, all playing company, they don’t always meet the musical challenges. Harmonies and tuning are further loosened by conductor Lada Valešová constantly ducking and diving, like an itinerant beggar, around the playing space. Song introductions suffer from a slight delay while she locates the various musicians, and vice versa. This stop-start stodginess permeates much of the first act, and it is only after interval that the flow finds its true course.

Musically it is spot on, avoiding the pitfalls of some modern interpretations of jollifying the compositions. And Brecht’s intentions are duly honoured. The absurdity is in plain sight and the surrealism defies theatrical convention. But rather than neatly slotting into the narrative, frustratingly some choices are just a touch too bizarre and random, and we disengage as our understanding gets muddied. Nearly a hundred years ago when it opened in Berlin, the work was a radical critique of the capitalist world. It is indeed just as relevant today, and doesn’t necessarily need modern anachronisms, especially ones as clumsy as slipping in references to William and Kate into the libretto, or offhand allusions to Boris Johnson. The themes are more universal than that and Brecht and Weill deserve more respect.

What cannot be avoided is the original disjointed ending, which this production does manage to pull off cohesively and with an emotional commitment that makes sense of the satire. This is largely due to Watts’ performance, his rendition of ‘Call from the Grave’ one of the highlights. Society hasn’t really changed much since “The Threepenny Opera” first premiered. The moral messages are just as raw. OVO’s interpretation retains that rawness – and the genuine grit, even if it doesn’t always grip.


THE THREEPENNY OPERA at the Cockpit Theatre

Reviewed on 21st September 2023

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Elliott Franks


 

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

My Body Is Not Your Country | ★★★ | August 2023
End Of The World Fm | ★★★ | August 2023
Love Goddess, The Rita Hayworth Musical | ★★ | November 2022
999 | ★★★ | November 2022
The Return | ★★★ | November 2022
L’Egisto | ★★★ | June 2021

The Threepenny Opera

The Threepenny Opera

Click here to read all our latest reviews