Fiddler on the Roof, the 1964 musical by Jerry Bock (music), Sheldon Harnick (lyrics) and Joseph Stein (book), is a much-loved classic for good reason. The glorious score with its stirring, achingly beautiful melodies includes memorable songs such as Tradition, If I Were a Rich Man, Matchmaker, Matchmaker and Sunrise, Sunset.

Troy Sussman as Tevye and Ben Adler as the fiddler in Fiddler on the Roof. Photo © Daniel Boud

Meanwhile, its plotline about religious persecution and displacement (based on short stories by Sholem Aleichem) remains depressingly timely – though its celebration of family and community and resilience shines like a light through the darkness, offering plenty of wry humour as well as heartache.

It also has one of musical theatre’s great leading roles – that of Tevye, the poor, warm-hearted milkman who is wedded to tradition and the way things should be done (“On the other hand …”) while having droll conversations with God.

The musical is set in 1905 in the small (fictional) Jewish village of Anatevka in the Pale of Settlement (now Ukraine) in Imperial Russia, home to Tevye (Troy Sussman), his wife Golde (Alexis Fishman)...