Quadrophenia

Paul Roberts (chor), Pete Townshend (writer, creator), Rachel Fuller (orchestration)

Sadler’s Wells, Extended Play & Universal Music UK

The Lowry, Salford

July 15-19, 2025; 2 hrs 10mins

Is it a ruck, or a rumble? A scene from Quadrophenia, the "Mod Ballet". All pics: Johan Persson

They say that if you really were young and in London in the 1960s, you shouldn't be able to remember too much about it. I’m a bit like that with 1973; I definitely saw The Who perform Quadrophenia live, but it’s a very hazy recollection.

I do remember that it was loud, a bit confusing and very exciting. I also remember that afterwards (back in the days when you could actually drive in central London) there was a traffic-blocking procession as the home-going audience wound down car windows and blasted The Who out to the world.

Fifty-odd years on, Sadler’s Wells’ Mod Ballet is a much more grown-up affair. Whether you think this is an emotional masterpiece, or something that is over-long and oddly dull in parts, will probably depend on the balance of existential angst and hard rock in your soul.

Rachel Fuller (music director, orchestrator and Pete Townshend’s wife) gives us a lush, old-school Hollywood soundtrack that flows seamlessly through the piece while maintaining the original album’s running order and tracks. It is beautiful, and underpins the storytelling, but the structure puts a pressure on Paul Roberts' choreography that it can’t sustain. Many of the scenes are simply too long, and while the dancing is spectacular, you find yourself impatient for things to move on.

It is telling that the audience’s most enthusiastic reception is for Jack Widdowson’s rock-star character The Godfather, and his Daltry-esque rendition of My Generation.

Quadrophenia traces a week in the life of Jimmy, who is bullied at home by his war-scarred father, bored at work, unfulfilled in love and torn by the four conflicting elements in his psyche: tough guy, lunatic, romantic and hypocrite. Jimmy brings a bravura performance from Paris Fitzpatrick, who is rarely off the stage and commands the spotlight while shrinking from the world.

This is the third work I have seen recently which examines the male soul and its struggle with life, death and sexuality. While the leading men were all falling apart, they were still where the man always is – centre stage, self-absorbed, often drink- and drug-fuelled and supported by almost invisible women. Discuss…

Quadrophenia, A Mod Ballet, looks fabulous. Yeastculture’s video backdrops and Christopher Oram’s set design bring the sea and the sixties surging on to the stage. Paul Smith’s costume designs are pinhead accurate and the suits and parkas look achingly cool, even in the middle of the Brighton Beach gang fight with the arch-rival rockers.

There is even a cameo role for a Lambretta scooter, while the ubiquitous cigarettes add to the general air of ennui.

There is both style and substance here, thrilling nostalgia for many and a sparkling snapshot of the sixties in Britain before the hippy invasion.

In his programme note, Pete Townshend denies he is “a victim of grandiosity and pretentiousness” and says his aim has always been to break new ground. But I suspect he doth protest too much: nothing wrong with a bit of old-fashioned grandiosity and pretension on a bank holiday Monday on Brighton beach…

More info and tickets here