Following a triumphant win for Best Musical Revival at this year’s Olivier Awards – as well as Best Set Design and Best Sound Design – final casting is announced for the highly anticipated UK & Ireland tour of the critically acclaimed production of FIDDLER ON THE ROOF. The show gets to the New Theatre in Cardiff from Tuesday 18th November.
This celebrated revival, featuring a cast of exceptional performers, has captivated audiences and critics alike during its West End run. Lead Cast member MATTHEW WOODYATT (Tevye) was born in Newport and grew up in Cwmcelyn. Also, in the cast as Mordcha/Innkeeper is Cardiff born SIÔN LLOYD.
We were at the Olivier’s this year and saw that special performance, you can watch it HERE.
We spoke to Matthew ahead of his return home to the New Theatre. We chatted about his role as Tevye on this tour. But started with his early days here in South Wales and how an amateur production was responsible for his becoming an actor.
Also in the cast – Olivier Award nominee Beverley Klein as Yente. Co-stars are Natasha Jules Bernard as Tzeitel, Georgia Bruce as Hodel, Hannah Bristow as Chava, Ashleigh Schuman as Shprintze and Georgia Dixon as Bielke.
They are joined in this beloved musical by Dan Wolff as Motel, Greg Bernstein as Perchik and Gregor Milne as Fyedka. Michael S. Siegel takes on the role of Lazar Wolf, with Mark Faith as the Rabbi and Toby Turpin as Mendel. Gareth Davies appears as Avram, Ed Bruggemeyer as Nachum, Sue Appleby as Shandel, Susannah van den Berg as Rifka, and Carys McQueen as Mirila. Olivier Award nominee Raphael Papo brings to life the iconic role of The Fiddler and Roman Lytwyniw as the alternate Fiddler, with Karl Wilson as the Constable. Rounding out the cast are Simon Anthony as Sasha, Jack Osmond as Russian #1, and Alex Pinder as Russian #2. Dylan Saffer joins as a male swing, with offstage swings Chris Draper and Maya Kristal Tenenbaum completing the company.
MATT WOLF is a London theatre writer for The New York Times and first saw Fiddler in 1977 on Broadway, with the legendary Zero Mostel. He looks back on the life of the musical and chats to Matthew Woodyatt.
You may think you know FIDDLER ON THE ROOF, the iconic 1964 musical that spawned the beloved 1971 film, starring Topol as the beleaguered milkmen Tevye, and that gets revived regularly on the London and Broadway stage.
Direct from a completely sold-out season at London’s Barbican Theatre the production now touring the country stands apart, whether you’re coming to the material for the first time or you already recognise the story of a Jewish community seeking refuge from the fearsome pogroms of Czarist Russia in 1905. (The show’s source are various short stories from the Yiddish playwright-author Sholem Aleichem.)
As directed by the expatriate American Jordan Fein, the production was first produced at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, garnering 13 Olivier nominations in April and winning three, including best musical revival. Told with unusual intensity of feeling and a revelatory attention to detail, the show felt that much deeper and richer when it transferred indoors to the Barbican Centre in London this past summer. That same staging, partially recast, is now touring the UK and Ireland through to January, much to the delight of its 4 principal performers.
Perhaps the staging’s greatest innovation is its use of the fiddler of the title. As reconceived for this production, he’s no longer a decorative element of the story but, instead, a sort of shadow-self to Tevye. The character here appears regularly throughout, which in turn allowed the Anglo-Israeli violinist Raphael Papo to get his own Olivier nod for the role – a banner achievement for a non-speaking part.
Raphael told us…..
“The idea this time out it wasn’t about, let’s put a violinist onstage and get him to play pretty tunes, but, actually, why am I playing at which moments and what am I trying to say with what I’m playing.
This fiddler is an extension of Tevye’s emotions, who can sort of reflect things back at Tevye that can’t be put into words. Every time Tevye is talking to God, the fiddler is there listening. In performance, I’m trying to sound like [the musical equivalent of] a human voice, not like some nice violinist”.
This is a show about love, it really is – about family and love and a shared humanity. I can’t think of any better way of putting it than that.” Fiddler belongs to the past and the present and, no doubt, the future, too.
FIDDLER ON THE ROOF gets to the New Theatre in Cardiff from Tuesday 18th through to Saturday 22nd November. Shows are at 7:30pm each evening with a 2:30pm matinee on Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday. For more details and tickets go HERE.
