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“You a Mod? Or a Rocker?” I was just four years old but it wasn’t the first time of asking and I definitely knew the answer. The Teddy Boys ran them a close second on the tailoring front back in 1964, but the Mods were newer and sharper and the music wasn’t half bad. The Who’s Pete Townshend memorialised Mod subculture in the 1973 double album Quadrophenia, his third rock opera. Six years later, a film version coincided with the Mod revival of the punk/new wave era. Now Townshend has added a two-act touring “Mod Ballet”, directed by Rob Ashford and set to an orchestrated recording of the original music.
The morality tale sticks closely to the album’s scenario about a miserable (if sharply dressed) teenager called Jimmy and the conflicting qualities — Tough Guy, Lunatic, Romantic and Hypocrite — doing battle for his soul. These are personified by a stag line of suited, booted dancers who shadow him in key scenes — the Lunatic at the psychiatrist’s, the Tough Guy when things turn ugly.
The soundtrack is cinematic to a fault, leached of most of the original power, but it looks splendid. Designer Paul Smith, born 1946, knows exactly the depth of the vents (8 ½ inch) and the number of cuff buttons (four) on a bespoke Mod suit. Christopher Oram’s sets for the 22 vignettes conjure the suburban front room of Jimmy’s unhappily married parents or the sticky leatherette and Formica of Soho’s legendary New Piccadilly café with the minimum of fuss. These roll-on roll-off settings are amplified by YeastCulture’s atmospheric video projections.
Real and virtual come together superbly for “5.15”, in which Jimmy takes some amphetamines on the train to Brighton, the whole cast enjoying a rhythmic game of sardines while the Sussex countryside flicks by. The resort itself, arena for the big bank holiday punch-up between Mods and Rockers, is effortlessly evoked with arty shots of the turquoise cast-iron promenade and a video that perfectly captures Townshend’s lyric: “the way the beach is kissed by the sea”. Your toes itch to paddle in that grey-green surf.
The chief dancemaking credit goes to seasoned pop music choreographer Paul Roberts assisted by three thoroughbred contemporary dance talents: Liam Riddick, Jemima Brown and Kai Tomioka. The resulting movement is slightly uneven, with the men better served than the women. The duets between Mod Girl and Jimmy or Ace Face (his tonic-suited idol) feel generic and uninvolving, but the playful wrestle to “Cut My Hair” between the lead and his childhood friend — touchingly played and danced by Euan Garrett — is by far the best thing in the show. The climactic street battle, which has inevitable echoes of the Sharks and Jets in West Side Story, is an unsatisfying mix of real aggression and stagy slow-motion effects. The production boasts an “intimacy facilitator”; the money might have been better spent on a fight director.
The nervous tension dipped whenever our hero was out of shot. Paris Fitzpatrick — star of Matthew Bourne’s 2019 Romeo and Juliet — is an expressive and charismatic Jimmy. More problem child than angry young man, he even manages to pull off the tricky final scene at Beachy Head, emerging washed clean by the waves. And smiling.
★★★☆☆
To July 13 then touring, sadlerswells.com
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