Review: Fiddler on the Roof Brings UK Tour to Edinburgh with Wit and Warmth

A timeless musical reimagined for today

The UK tour of Fiddler on the Roof, drawn from last summer’s sold-out Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre revival, continued last night at the Edinburgh Festival Theatre (9 September) in its Scottish premiere. This follows a sell-out 8-week season at London’s Barbican.

Few musicals arrive with such immediate recognition: many in the audience will be humming Jerry Bock’s score before the curtain rises. Jordan Fein’s staging is not a radical reinvention, nor a museum piece. No, this is a production that honours the Joseph Stein’s original book while speaking to the present.

Tevye, Anatevka’s poor dairyman, still pontificates on everything beginning with “As the Good Book says,” even as he struggles with five daughters intent on making modern marriages, all against the backdrop of Tsarist Russia’s growing hostility to the Jewish presence in what would be modern-day Ukraine. It’s a wry, joyful tale of tradition, loss, and hope, complete with an iconic songbook.

A Set of Shelter and Fragility

Tom Scutt’s design makes a striking first impression. A great timber roof, lined with wheat stalks, hovers over the stage, shifting in height and weight as the story unfolds. Sometimes it offers protection, sometimes a straitjacket. The image works on several levels: a literal home, a communal canopy, and a reminder of how precarious Anatevka’s existence is.

That said, it’s not as versatile as the Regent’s Park original. Less fragile, more monumental, it looms a little like a tombstone, inscribed with the village’s name. Around it, the pared-back staging, dominated by wood, straw and fabric, results in an earthy palette that strips away excess, setting the scene for a story of love, but more so, loss. (Word to the wise: front rows may benefit from a pillow to avoid sore necks when craning to see the titular fiddler when on the roof.)

“Tom Scutt’s design makes a striking first impression. A great timber roof, lined with wheat stalks, hovers over the stage, shifting in height and weight as the story unfolds.”

Performances with Weight and Warmth

If the set frames the action, it is the performances that bring it to life. At the centre stands Matthew Woodyatt as Tevye, the dairyman whose faith and whimsy sustain him through hardship. He balances wit, warmth and weary resilience. His asides with God feel intimate and conversational, his monologues shaded with quiet gravity.

Woodyatt’s distinctly Welsh tones do, nevertheless, take some adjustment, particularly against the Yiddish inflexions adopted by parts of the company. And while his baritone is lyrical and expressive, his lower register at times lacks the heft needed. Still, he has the charisma, stage presence and heart needed to anchor the show.

**Roman Lytwyniw (The Fiddler), Matthew Woodyatt (Tevye). Credit – Johan Persson**

Opposite him, Jodie Jacobs plays Golde, Tevye’s wife, with grounded strength. Their duet “Do You Love Me?” – played with hesitancy, humour and tenderness – proves one of the most touching moments, revealing the understated depth of a long marriage.

Beverley Klein is a sharply comic Yente, the village matchmaker, delivering her gossip with precision, both biting and oddly endearing. Natasha Jules Bernard, as Tzeitel, Tevye’s eldest daughter, gives her character a determined individuality, while Hannah Bristow brings quiet intensity to Chava, the third daughter, whose marriage tests the family’s faith to breaking point.

Opening night brought several cast switches. Ashleigh Schuman stepped in as Hodel, the second daughter, and gave an excellent turn – assured, expressive, and without a hint of nerves. Georgia Dixon appeared as Shprintze, the fourth daughter, and Carys McQueen as the youngest, Bielke. Maya Kristal Tenenbaum took the role of Mirila, one of the young villagers, while Chris Draper played the Constable, the local Constable whose politeness masks an iron fist. All slotted seamlessly into the ensemble, preserving the production’s cohesion.

The supporting company as a whole sustains the village’s communal identity. Siôn Lloyd, Dan Wolff, Greg Bernstein, Gregor Milne, Michael S. Siegel, and others create vivid villagers, while Raphael Papo’s fiddler – part spirit, part observer – threads through the action as both witness and symbol. Together, they create a community whose shared fate is as tangible as any individual role. This is a living, breathing settlement complete with arguments and agreements, joys, miseries. and everyday absurdities.

Tradition in the Body

Julia Cheng’s choreography reinforces that sense of collectivity. Rather than replicating Jerome Robbins’s original dances as period curiosities, she reimagines them as rituals still alive. The wedding sequence, often the show’s highlight, becomes a storm of stamping feet and flying bodies, brimming with pride and resistance. Elsewhere, villagers advance in taut, rhythmic formations, bottles balanced upon their heads, their steps a collective declaration of identity.

Humour finds its way into the movement too – exaggerated gestures, comic collapses, clownish exertion. But always beneath the laughter is a physical assertion of belonging, dance as the embodiment of identity and heritage.

“At the centre stands Matthew Woodyatt as Tevye, the dairyman whose faith and whimsy sustain him through hardship. He balances wit, warmth and weary resilience.”

Laughter and Loss

Fein’s direction is notable for how lightly it shifts between tones. The opening “Tradition” bursts with communal energy. Tevye’s banter sparkles with fun, and the dream sequence is staged with grotesque playfulness. Yet when the atmosphere darkens, the transition feels seamless. A silence descends, the roof slips, a familiar tune falters, and the mood has shifted.

The decree of expulsion is delivered plainly, without theatrics. The stunned quiet that follows is more devastating than any wail. By the time the villagers sing the elegiac “Anatevka,” voices low and fractured, the joy of earlier scenes lingers only as memory.

Resonance in the Present

What could easily read as a period piece, instead resonates with uncomfortable immediacy. The image of families bundling possessions and stepping into the unknown inevitably recalls images from today’s news, be it Gaza or Ukraine where the play takes place. Fein does not belabour the comparison; he trusts the audience to recognise the parallels.

One of the production’s strengths is its refusal to indulge in easy nostalgia. The familiar numbers are performed with care, but without too much sugar. “Sunrise, Sunset” aches with inevitability, not sentiment. Tevye’s famous earworm, “If I Were a Rich Man” bubbles with self-mockery as much as showboating. Even in its lightest moments, the storm clouds are in view.

The result is a revival that resonates beyond an easy nostalgia trip. It reminds us that Fiddler was always a story of instability and exile, even as it celebrated community and song.

Closing Notes

By the end, as Tevye and his neighbours prepare to leave their homes, the production offers no easy consolation. The music swells but does not resolve. What lingers is a recognition that this story is not unique, and that its echoes stretch far beyond the stage.

It’s a sombre ending, yet one that underlines why Fiddler on the Roof endures. Its playfulness, melodies and family bonds remain intact, but beneath them lies the knowledge that tradition is a double-edged word. If this touring production of the beloved show has lost some of its Regent’s Park magic, it still honours the original show’s heart while letting it speak with renewed urgency.

Featured Image: Raphael Papo (The Fiddler). Credit Marc Brenner