FIDDLER ON THE ROOF AT THE BIRMINGHAM HIPPODROME
Theatre Run: Tuesday 11 - Saturday 15 March 2014
Performance Reviewed: Tuesday 11 March 2014 (Press Night)
Reviewed by Kyle Pedley
Tradition!
Paul Michael Glaser and his delightful troupe of fellow players segue us into Fiddler on the Roof with this instantly recognisable ode to, unsurprisingly, traditional values, roles and aspirations within the quaint Jewish community who inhabit the show, and yet it also serves as a perfect tonal leaping point for what is fundamentally in and of itself a thoroughly traditional yet delightfully characterful, somewhat old-fashioned observational slice of charming musical theatre. There is no grand overriding narrative, save for the occasional allusions to the wider civil unrest and approaching revolution of early 20th Century Tsarist Russia, which now and again comes knocking in the form of an over-zealous, potentially anti-semitic constable and his enforcers, but for the most part this is a measured, slower-burning study of character, society and even faith within a simple rural community. Many of the musical interludes from Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock’s now iconic score, from ‘If I Were a Rich Man’ to ‘Matchmaker’, clever and individual as they may be, are mostly stop-start affairs to give us a more palatable understanding of the characters themselves as opposed to driving forward the light semblance of plot.
