Daniel Krikler on the keys to survival in 'The Pianist'

Daniel Krikler stars in the stage adaptation of The Pianist. We met him to discover more about this show which celebrates not only the power of music, but also the power of the human spirit.

Summary

• Daniel Krikler stars in Wladyslaw Szpilman’s memoir The Pianist at the Park Theatre
• He stars as celebrated Polish-Jewish composer Szpilman, who survived the Nazi occupation
• Krikler recently starred in Jordan Fein’s production of Fiddler on the Roof

“I feel I’m by far the least talented,” says actor Daniel Krikler modestly, speaking of the actor-musicians who make up the cast of a new musical adaptation of Wladyslaw Szpilman’s extraordinary memoir, The Pianist, at the Park Theatre.

Krikler is currently starring as Szpilman, a celebrated Polish-Jewish composer who survived the Nazi occupation of Warsaw through his music. The production uses Szpilman’s own compositions and Krikler has learned to play the piano, an experience he has found rather worrisome. “The end is frightening because that’s where I play the most piano and I don’t want to mess that up,” he laughs. “The piano feels quite sacred in our play and our set; it’s there all the time, it’s moving, and it becomes other things, and so when I do actually get to play it, it always feels somehow terrifying.”

Using Szpilman’s own music was a decision made at the beginning of the creative process by adaptor and director Thom Southerland, who has worked with Andrzej Szpilman, Wladyslaw’s son. Andrzej “wanted to make sure this was really about his father’s music, as well as his story of survival, and his Jewishness,” says Krikler. Much of the piano-playing is taken on by musical director Malcolm Forbes-Peckham as “Thom didn’t want it to have someone just stuck on the piano the whole show. He wanted to have someone who was able to come away and move and retell and reimagine.”

The production is narrated by Szpilman’s character, who looks back at his life before, during, and after the war, underscored by his music. “It works really beautifully, and it’s incredibly moving, because all of the music is his,” Krikler observes. “There’s something just incredibly powerful and evocative about that. I think the music literally saved his life.”

Krikler was familiar with the story, having read the memoir many years ago, but is glad to have only seen the award-winning film once, saying he would hate to be drawing upon it in his own performance. Adrien Brody won an Academy Award for his role as Szpilman, but Krikler doesn’t feel any pressure to compete. “I don’t feel the responsibility of being compared with Adrien Brody, because I think he’s in another league to me […] but I really want to do it justice. I’m aware of how much it matters to everyone, so there’s definitely pressure.”

The memoir was the starting point for the production, with many additions coming from Andrzej’s recollections of his father’s stories: “It’s an amazing insight,” says Krikler. “I think it also makes you realise how it’s so easy with the Holocaust to think how it was ancient history, but when you have Andrzej — not an old man at all — being, like, ‘this is my dad’, it makes it very real.”

As a Jew with grandparents who were Holocaust survivors, Krikler feels a strong connection to the story. “It’s been a big part of my consciousness and presence and culture,” he says thoughtfully. “But whether that makes me better at doing [the role], I don’t actually know.”

Unlike Jordan Fein’s recent production of Fiddler on the Roof (where Krikler played radical tutor Perchik), not all the cast and creative team of The Pianist have Jewish heritage. Krikler acknowledges that this is always a source of debate. “I’ve always been a believer that it’s deeply important to have those authentic voices represented in the space,” he says candidly. “But you want to do the role because you’re right for the role, and best for that role. There’s something unpleasant [about getting] a role because of something that you are and not something that you do.”

He has a robust attitude to the daunting task ahead of him. “Even when it feels very real, I always feel able to step away afterwards and leave that there. I’ve never had [an issue] where it impacts my own mental health,” he says earnestly. “But I think this will be the hardest role I’ve done in that sense, where it is a lot of going through that night after night.”

Krikler emphasises the importance of finding light within the darkness of the story, but personally finds this difficult with his family’s history. “I find it really hard to not see it as just awful and horrible and meaningless death.”

However, he particularly loves the first section of the show. “We really get to show him and his family as just a normal, functioning family; these young people who were just excited and making music,” he smiles.

He acknowledges that the subject matter “is harrowing and upsetting, but I hope it’s also going to be beautiful and an experience that fills you up as an audience.”

“We want the show to feel uplifting, and we want the show to feel hopeful, and I think it is, in a certain way. It is an amazing story of survival and of overcoming things, and of finding small bits of good in a very bleak, brutal, and awful world.”

Book The Pianist tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk

This article first appeared in the November 2026 issue of London Theatre Magazine.

Photo credit: The Pianist. (Photos by Rich Southgate)