(seen at the afternoon performance on 3rd July 2025)
An album the monkey has never listened to, a film it recalls seeing once but couldn’t tell you anything about. Yet the idea of a “rock ballet” grabbed its attention. Set in one of its favourite periods of history, the monkey stuck its tail around the door... and was glad it did.
The early 1960s, when boys were still expected to become men at around 15, school leaving age. No “national service,” money becoming a little less tight, wartime austerity a memory of only the older generations. Setting trends and fashions were the thing – and the Mod community did it in clothes, music, what they drove and where they went.
For Jimmy (Paris Fitzpatrick), working class London suburbia is his normal. His parents (Stuart Neal and Kate Tydman) drink and watch television, the men work in a factory, and Jimmy wants a lot more.
In a single week, he tries to find himself and his place in the Mod community – idolising musicians and channelling the perfect Mod Girl (Serena McCall) and Mod Boy (Matthew Ball) to lead him towards his goal.
We first meet Jimmy on a cliff rock. Emerging behind him are his personalities – “tough guy” (Curtis Angus), “lunatic” (Dylan Jones), “romantic” and “hypocrite” (Will Bozier).
With the shadow of “drugs” (Amaris Gillies) looming, the personalities are ever-present as Jimmy explores the world.
A string of scenes reveal feelings he cannot explain to his disinterested parents. An excellent early one establishes his psychiatric state – “lunatic” taking over a consultation, a book nobody else wants to read expanding on it.
Home life is monotonous, his father’s deeply moving and perfectly staged – sometimes in silence – dream flashback sequence explains all - a battle to save a fallen comrade-in-arms.
More colourful, Mod Girl works in the Picadilly Café and dreams of fashion design as a career. Competition for her affections is fierce and no-holds-barred. Same goes for the attention of a rock-star, in a terrific fan encounter sequence.
The ensemble routines playing out the flirtations and failures are a constant in the first half, one resolved amusingly as the curtain rises on the second.
This trigger for a trip to Brighton is clear... and the mood darkens again.
As with the rest of the production, Yeastculture.org’s projections onto Christopher Oram’s flying shaped flat panels evoke effortlessly locations from pier to Grand Hotel. Paul Smith has fun with the period costumes. Pre-miniskirt, when the look was sharp for Mods, leather for emerging Rockers (think “Grease” without US panache), and 60s beachwear amuses.
The seaside clashes of the era also allow choreographer Paul Roberts free range, the “rumbles” far exceeding “West Side Story” in scope, boys and girls fighting with surprising aggression in their dance steps.
Director Rob Ashford achieves all he sets out to do. If he allows some scenes to play a little too long, we get an almost unswervingly engrossing insight into a stressed teenage mind of yesteryear.
The issues were perhaps simpler then thanks to an absence of social media's cruel topping for existential angst. Yet the alienation is unchanged, and as this show builds to a dreaded outcome, the tension is palpable.
We care for all involved, the set-pieces and smaller moments are well executed, and the sense of period is always strong. A triumph for the first production developed at the new Sadler’s Wells East studio.
4 stars.