By: James Banyard
Deep into Act 2 of Quadrophenia: A Mod Ballet, a three carriage train packed with passengers appears to race across the stage. Using vivid projections, a 1960’s British Rail carriage, complete with individual compartments, stiff seating, swinging luggage, and dancers that jostle for space in stylish suits and pencil skirts. It’s a moment of pure British nostalgia, and captures what this new production from Sadler’s Wells and Universal Music does best. With bold sets, manic energy, and a cracking soundtrack, Quadrophenia reimagined as mod-ballet is an ambitious ride.
The story, originally told in The Who’s 1973 concept album (and later 1979 film), follows working-class Mod teenager Jimmy Cooper as he bounces through a week of crises. Jimmy is fractured into four selves, reflecting different strands of his inner world: romantic, aggressive, disillusioned, idealistic. Pete Townshend’s music, re-orchestrated by Rachel Fuller and Martin Batchelar and performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, (recorded, rather than live, inevitably) blasts the audience in this two hour production. Prepare to be immersed.
The production avoids being a classical ballet or contemporary dance. The subtitle is mod ballet, and, whatever that means, I think the choreography by Paul Roberts lives up to that name. The dancing is full-throated and muscular, never precious, dry, or delicate. It’s movement you can easily picture swaggering down a high street, prowling round a nightclub floor, or crammed into a train carriage.
Visually, you’ll love the projections and the sets. They flow seamlessly from one location to the next: an all-night diner, Brighton beach, a father’s wartime memory, a Soho rock club. The scene transitions are fast, clear, and often clever. These motorway underpass feels iconic and realistic.
Paul Smith’s mod-inspired costumes of sharp suits, fitted skirts, and leather jackets, are exactly what this audience, many of whom are dressed similarly, would expect. I did wonder how breathable or flexible they were for the dancers. Rucked up shirts, and misplaced ties are common on stage.
The mood of the piece flips between brash and poignant. There’s sadness in the family scenes. You’ll be moved by the mother, desperate for connection to her husband, yet both ignoring their son when he returns home. The psychiatrist’s office with baffling piles of books, and unfollowable instructions, mirrors Jimmy’s mental turmoil. But, at times we see the cast confidently leaning into the swagger of the times, with strutting ensemble numbers. The Soho gig scene almost lifts the roof.
While Quadrophenia is rooted in 1960s class rebellion, this production resists making explicit connections with the present. There are no phones, no social media, and in the end the danger is that the production could be seen as easy nostalgia.
Yet, in the foyer before curtain up, one audience member tells me, “It’s my first ballet”. It may not have much to say about the modern world, but Quadrophenia is certainly a way into dance for some of the punters, and that may be in itself a revolution.