Quadrophenia, Sadler's Wells review - missed opportunity to give new stage life to a Who classic

The red, white and blue bull’s-eye on the front curtain at Sadler’s Wells tells us we are in the familiar territory of Pete Townshend’s rock musical about teenage angst in 1960s Britain. What follows isn’t so easy to recognise.

Quadrophenia started life in 1973 as a double album, and six years later became a film; now it’s a contemporary dance piece with an outstanding cast. Yet it seems to be a case of diminishing returns.

The powerful vocals of its songs are silenced, with just a heavenly choir in the closing numbers representing a human presence. And the thrilling axeman chords Townshend accompanied with windmilling arms and scissor jumps at live gigs have been transformed by composer Rachel Fuller into dense banks of swooping strings, over which a motley collection of solo instruments – cello, trumpet, twangy electric guitar – pick out the vocal lines. It’s loud and bombastic, and fatally reminded me of the sketch where French and Saunders play opera singers recording “I Should Be So Lucky”.

With the lyrics gone, the audience is left to tease out what’s happening on stage. (The programme is a help here.) Our young hero, Jimmy (Paris Fitzpatrick, pictured below), comes with a set of four suited male dancers, who swirl around him as he descends ever deeper into confusion. These turn out to represent the quadruple warring facets of his personality, hence the title of the piece. His main rival is Ace Face (Dan Baines), the spivvy man the Mod Girl (Taela Yeomans-Brown) has chosen over him; his best friend is a Rocker, his father a heavy drinker tormented by reliving the Second World War in his head.

Jimmy’s head, meanwhile, is full of despair and yearning, expressed in movements that extend his limbs into long arcing lines. When the amphetamines kick in, he’s literally jumpy, acrobatically stunning and ceaselessly on the move. Fitzpatrick, a former New Adventures star, is the real deal, a fine actor-dancer. He does what he can to communicate Jimmy’s desire to escape his home and his mindless job – seen in one factory scene, though what it makes isn’t clear – but his solos become overlong and inevitably repetitive as Paul Roberts’s choreography works overtime to fill the long-winded music.

Luckier is Matthew Ball, guesting from the Royal Ballet for a run of performances, who is given a dynamic sexy-slinky solo to “My Generation”, as the pop star Jimmy idolises, the Godfather. His cold rejection of Jimmy when he asks for an autograph is a moment of clearly articulated drama. The orchestration here, too, feels sharper and scaled down to be closer to the original than most of the score, and the choreography, excitingly, is more inflected with classical ballet moves, though there is also a trademark Townshend scissor jump too. 

Elsewhere, anything goes. Roberts has drawn from a mix of styles, especially the acrobatic pyrotechnics of street dance that send the dancers leaping and somersaulting; there are nods to topical dances like the Shake and the Twist at the club, even one to figure-skating at one point, when a dancer does a twirling arabesque as if on ice. It’s difficult technically, and the cast meet its athletic challenges impressively, but, frustratingly, it's dance rather than dance theatre, moves to music rather than a projection of the inherent drama of Townshend’s storyline. It may please the eye, but it doesn’t reach the heart.

The piece looks a million dollars, though, stylishly designed by Christopher Oram, with videos by YeastCulture.org. In the first scene, the angular rock Jimmy and his four temperaments perform on is seemingly surrounded by water, with a dramatic aerial shot of the sea projected on the backdrop. The action moves seamlessly to the London streets, a café interior, Jimmy’s factory, his home, the Marquee club, a train to Brighton (pictured below, with Fitzpatrick, left, Will Bozier and Curtis Angus), all lifted by the projections and the moody lighting (Fabiana Piccioli). It presents a shadowy noir version of London in 1964 that could be mistaken for LA.The Mods, too, despite their sharp suits (courtesy of Sir Paul Smith, no less), are not instantly identifiable as such. Only Jimmy has a ‘do a fellow Mod would have acknowledged. Eventually just the one scooter turns up, ridden in and out like a hobby horse, along with a couple of parkas (but no fox-fur trim). The women at least have perky mini-dresses to go clubbing in; and the Rocker mob, when they finally turn up en masse in the Brighton scene, are pitch-perfect in their leather jackets and turned up jeans.

The quality of the staging and the high standards of the dancing can’t hide the fact that the piece needs a tighter score (and many fewer strings). This would lead to fewer longueurs in the narrative. The finale, in particular, where Jimmy tries to brace himself for leaping off his Brighton rock into the void, seems endless, with poor Fitzpatrick dancing his heart out like some modern-day Hilarion. Five stars for him, Ball and the rest of the hard-working company, but oh for a piece more worthy of their talents.

• Quadrophenia at Sadler’s Wells until 13 July, then touring
• More dance reviews on theartsdesk