Did the critics hit the roof over Omid Djalili in Fiddler?

Matt Trueman, WhatsOnStage

★★★★

"Comedian Omid Djalili is too quick to play the beleaguered schmuck, all sighs and shrugs aimed at the heavens, his Tevye is primarily a comic attitude. "If I Were a Rich Man" becomes an idle daydream, trilled quietly to himself. There's too little at stake: no urgency in his battles to keep poverty at bay, no grizzled determination to protect his family at all costs. You never feel he might tear himself in two: the man of faith and the loving father.

"Nonetheless, this is undoubtedly strong programming from Chichester's new boss Daniel Evans – and not just because it makes an unapologetic show of Jewish culture at a moment of rising anti-semitism. Fiddler's central tensions – cultural conservatism and progressive politics – have a wider resonance today, and it's noticeable that Tevye's daughters, several played by mixed race actors, feel far more contemporary than their father and his wife, Golde (superbly played by a stoic Tracy-Ann Oberman.)"

"Part of Fiddler's power is simply in making something that can seem exclusive and inscrutable accessible to the point of populist. Even if Joseph Stein's book is sometimes sluggish, Bock's score is packed with take-away tunes and Sheldon Harnick's lyrics bore into your brain."

Fiona Mountford, Evening Standard

★★★★

"The Chichester hit factory triumphs again. The country’s most consistently classy regional theatre has gained a well-deserved reputation in recent years for its top quality revivals of musicals and, under new artistic director Daniel Evans, it’s tuneful business as usual. Evans’s rich and detailed production, which boasts 28 actors and 13 musicians is anchored by a warmly appealing and remarkably accomplished turn from comedian Omid Djalili as Tevye, the kind-hearted but harried dairyman."

"Lez Brotherston’s design imposes a makeshift proscenium arch on the wide expanses of the Festival Theatre, from which characters emerge onto the thrust at the front to make each scene vivid and distinctive. Alistair David’s choreography is unflaggingly accomplished, especially in the high-point wedding scene which concludes the lengthy first half."

"Djalili, who makes more than decent work of the fine songs including If I Were a Rich Man, is well paired with Tracy-Ann Oberman as his spirited but long-suffering wife Golde. Particularly noteworthy among the daughters is the sweet-voiced Rose Shalloo as book-loving Chava."

Bella Todd, The Stage

★★★

"Daniel Evans seems to have no fresh ideas of the kind you expect from big Chichester musicals… with its repetitive lyrics and rather weak jokes, this Fiddler feels as tired as Tevye’s poor horse."

"The presence of Omid Djalili is the production's greatest asset. Despite being a British-Iranian of Baha’i faith, the comedian keeps getting cast as a Jew. He made his musical debut as Fagin in Oliver!, then played a Muslim discovering his Hassidic ancestry in David Baddiel’s The Infidel. In that film, Djalili’s character received a fast-track education in Judaism. Core curriculum: how to dance like Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof."

"Good as they are, there isn’t enough chemistry among the cast to bring out the colour and spirit of the close shtetl community, and Lez Brotherston’s drably authentic design makes everything feel rather samey. As if realising this, fire and stage rain are thrown in at the end of each act, and there’s an unnecessary piece of video projection. But despite the charisma of its leads, Evans’ production, unlike its protagonist, suffers from poverty of the imagination."

Lyn Gardner, Guardian

★★★★

"For too long Fiddler has been a show, like West Side Story, whose brilliance has been undervalued because productions remain locked into the staging traditions of mid-20th-century Broadway musicals. What we watch are replicas rather than reinventions."

"In Evans’s production… the villagers come across not as figures from the past but as people today who are displaced by global politics. This Fiddler is bigger and flashier than other recent incarnations but designer Lez Brotherston offers a distinctly austere and modern space that can be transformed, in the style of poor theatre, with just a few planks and suitcases. Two apertures at the back of the stage offer blue sky and a horizon that suggest sunsets and raging fires. The opening moments, when the cast emerge as silhouettes, sets the tone for an evening that can feel like a sepia-toned photograph come vibrantly to life.

Alistair David’s choreography offers plenty of nods to Jerome Robbins’s original but still looks spicily contemporary. The bottle routine at the wedding turns athletic as the young men of the village pit themselves against each other. The songs in Fiddler are familiar, perhaps over-familiar, but when Djalili delivers If I Were a Rich Man he does it as if he’s thinking out loud for the first time. The effect is comically touching."

"The emotional honesty of Djalili is matched by the excellent Tracy-Ann Oberman, who makes Tevye’s wife, Golde, a fully-fledged character not just a stereotypical comic shrew, and an ensemble playing the villagers bewildered by cultural shifts. As Liza Sadovy’s Yente plaintively cries: "What happens to the matchmaker when the young people decide who they marry themselves?" Her own survival, like the great American musical, depends on a capacity for reinvention."

Dominic Cavendish, The Telegraph

★★★★

"The Anglo-Iranian funnyman, 51, has appeared as Fagin in the West End. He has also – in The Infidel – played a British Muslim mini-cab driver who finds out he’s Jewish. But this is a different order of temerity. He’s following in the hallowed footsteps of original star Zero Mostel and Topol (who took the role on screen too) and upon this struggling everyman’s shoulders rest not only the fate of his kith but also in a way the great historical baggage of his kind."

"There may well be commentators who argue that no matter how committed Djalili is, he’s over-stepping the mark. Yet from my ordinary-goy vantage point I couldn’t discern Djalili’s performance to be anything other than a triumph."

"There’s so much gusto, so much delight, taken in the playing of this outwardly simple soul (with a redeeming-endearing capacity for internal self-debate) that Djalili earns his keep (even the temporary right to sport a yarmulke) at every step."

Fiddler on the Roof runs at Chichester Festival Theatre until 2 September 2017.