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Fashion Network
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Fashion Network
Paul Smith creates costumes for Pete Townshend's Quadrophenia 'Mod ballet'
Quadrophenia has been an album, a rock opera and a movie and now it's become a ballet with on board to design the costumes. The Who's landmark 1973 album Quadrophenia debuts this month as 'Quadrophenia, a Mod Ballet', presented by Sadler's Wells and Universal Music UK. It's at Sadler's Wells in London until 13 July and will also tour the UK over the summer. Smith's involvement is perhaps fitting given the mod obsession with sharp tailoring and the designer's beginnings as a tailor in the 1960s and 70s. As the press release says, he 'played a pivotal role in the reinvention and modernisation of men's tailoring in the 20th century. His eponymous company has continued to champion his playful, irreverent ideals during the intervening six decades, making Sir Paul and his team uniquely placed to create the costumes for this new vision of Pete Townshend's opus'. The brief for the ballet was to design and make suits that 'faithfully replicate mod fashion's famously razor-sharp lines whilst also giving the dancers a full range of movement'. Paul Smith has created suits that 'are immediately reminiscent of the 1960s, with slim trousers and jackets featuring narrow lapels, longer vents, and additional buttons. Working with the cast, each suit has been made bespoke for each dancer, to ensure they are entirely unrestricted while dancing'. A greater range of motion has been achieved through the implementation of design details, such as articulated sleeve gussets and specially cut trousers. That materials include tonic suiting, subtle checks, and details like the famous 'target' motif. A full-length stone-coloured raincoat, adapted from the company's AW24 collection and similar to a piece seen in the 1979 feature film, will also be worn onstage.
Daily Mail
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Leslie Ash, 65, shows off her taut visage as she reunites with Phil Daniels, 66, at Quadrophenia event - 45 years after filming cult classic
Quadrophenia stars Leslie Ash and Phil Daniels looked delighted to be in each other's company again as they reunited 45 years after filming the cult classic. The actors, aged 65 and 66 respectively, looked in great spirits as they posed on the red carpet at a ballet adaptation of the 1979 British drama at Sadler's Wells in London. Leslie looked more youthful than ever in the snaps, while casually clad in a black polo neck jumper and trousers teamed with white trainers. The Men Behaving Badly star was aided by the use of a pink walking stick, two decades after contracting an MSSA superbug that nearly left her unable to walk. By her side was Phil, who sported a brown T-shirt and navy blazers with tinted shades. The duo were impressed by the production, calling the cast 'fantastic'. Quadrophenia, which was set amid the real-life drama of mods and rockers fighting on Brighton beach in 1964, also starred the likes of Sting and Ray Winstone. The cult classic was based on the eponymous 1972 double-album by The Who. While it was one of his most famous roles, Phil previously confessed he could barely remember filming the drama. He said: 'All I can remember about the film is working really hard. We shot it all in six weeks and we did the end first. 'It was quite interesting and it's kind of a nice way of doing a film where you do the end first, so at least you know where you've got to go with the character.' However, in 2010, Phil confessed that he is constantly asked about his sex scene with Leslie, quipping: ' If I had a pound for every time someone asked me exactly how intimate, I'd be a very rich man.' Writing for the Mail, he continued: 'I can see it coming a mile off, although people think they're being subtle. 'Since no system of automatic remuneration exists for this routine conversational exchange, I would like to take this opportunity to say once and for all: It didn't happen.' He added: 'That scene looks good on the screen but I remember it being quite awkward - Leslie really didn't want to do it. 'The problem with Leslie and me --well, it wasn't a problem, because it worked really well in the film - was that I was very raw and young at that time, whereas she already had a boyfriend who was a lot older than her and drove a Porsche. 'I couldn't compete even though obviously I wanted to because she was pretty. 'And while me having the sense that I was not in her league was good for Quadrophenia, it wasn't so good for me. 'Especially as I'd seen her jealous boyfriend hanging around the set a few times - not exactly giving me the evil eye, but almost. It wasn't my fault, was it? But you know what boyfriends are like, especially those who are going out with actresses. 'It wasn't just the boyfriend issue. The whole scene was tricky for Leslie and director Franc Roddam had to coax her into it by saying, 'Get in there for the old wallbanger.' 'You wouldn't generally do too many rehearsals before a scene like that so we were very new to each other. 'It was meant to be a closed set, but there's always someone who shouldn't be there - one of the crew trying every means possible to get a glimpse of the action. 'Excepting the occasional setbuilder with a wandering eye, Roddam was good at keeping people at arm's length. 'I never got The Who's Roger Daltrey coming up and telling me how to do it. Well, we did have a bit of a chat one day while sitting on a couple of deckchairs in Brighton, but that was fine by me.'
Fashion Network
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Fashion Network
Paul Smith creates costumes for Pete Townshend's Quadrophenia 'Mod ballet'
Quadrophenia has been an album, a rock opera and a movie and now it's become a ballet with Paul Smith on board to design the costumes. The Who's landmark 1973 album Quadrophenia debuts this month as 'Quadrophenia, a Mod Ballet', presented by Sadler's Wells and Universal Music UK. It's at Sadler's Wells in London until 13 July and will also tour the UK over the summer. Smith's involvement is perhaps fitting given the mod obsession with sharp tailoring and the designer's beginnings as a tailor in the 1960s and 70s. As the press release says, he 'played a pivotal role in the reinvention and modernisation of men's tailoring in the 20th century. His eponymous company has continued to champion his playful, irreverent ideals during the intervening six decades, making Sir Paul and his team uniquely placed to create the costumes for this new vision of Pete Townshend's opus'. The brief for the ballet was to design and make suits that 'faithfully replicate mod fashion's famously razor-sharp lines whilst also giving the dancers a full range of movement'. Paul Smith has created suits that 'are immediately reminiscent of the 1960s, with slim trousers and jackets featuring narrow lapels, longer vents, and additional buttons. Working with the cast, each suit has been made bespoke for each dancer, to ensure they are entirely unrestricted while dancing'. A greater range of motion has been achieved through the implementation of design details, such as articulated sleeve gussets and specially cut trousers. That materials include tonic suiting, subtle checks, and details like the famous 'target' motif. A full-length stone-coloured raincoat, adapted from the company's AW24 collection and similar to a piece seen in the 1979 feature film, will also be worn onstage.
The Sun
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Sun
Veteran actors Leslie Ash and Phil Daniel reunite at premiere of ballet version of 1979 Brit flick Quadrophenia
VETERAN actors Leslie Ash and Phil Daniels look sharp at the premiere of a ballet version of Quadrophenia. The pair, who found fame in the iconic 1979 flick about gangs of scooter-riding mods, had a ball reminiscing. 3 Phil, 66, said: 'Here's Leslie and me not quite pirouetting at the Quadrophenia Mod Ballet.' With a soundtrack by The Who 's Pete Townshend and performances by Sting and Toyah Wilcox, the film quickly became a cult classic. And the dance production, which was launched at London's Sadler's Wells Theatre this week, looks set to do the same. After the premiere, Phil described the ballet as 'a high-brow, high-octane re-imagining'. He called the young cast 'fantastic' and said the production was on the way to becoming 'another cult classic'. Phil, 66, and Leslie, 65, or Phil, 66, starred in the movie set in London and Brighton about a young Mod who liked scooters, drugs, fights... and romance. Sting and Toyah Wilcox were also among the original cast. He and Leslie, 65, also joined by Spice Girls Emma Bunton and Mel C. 3
Telegraph
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
As a fan of The Who, this wretched ‘mod ballet' makes me want to weep
'Where's Matthew Bourne when you need him most?' This sad thought kept ricocheting around my mind on Tuesday evening as this slick, well-meaning, wretchedly anodyne dance-theatre version of The Who's marvellous 1973 album – which became an even more marvellous film in 1979 – played out. The mod-ish moves, the hormone-driven mayhem, the fabled mid-Sixties setting – oh, to think what fun he and his designer Lez Brotherston could have had with it all. For all its grandiosity, that 1973 'rock opera' is packed full of cracking music, and it was put to perfect use in Franc Roddam's work-of-art movie, a confection that positively bubbled over with teenage swagger, insecurity and take-no-prisoners tribalism – as well as sex, drugs and (yep) rock'n'roll. Do watch it if you can; there's nothing quite like it. The fundamental problem with this new 'mod ballet', though, is that all the sharp or exciting edges of the album's narrative – so cleverly exploited and amped up on the big screen – have been either completely filed off or at least sanded down to an unthreatening shine. The album's story is essentially there: Jimmy (the lithe Paris Fitzpatrick), a young mod living in 1965 London, wars with his parents, fights rockers in Brighton, tries to keep up with his pals and win the heart of Mod Girl (Leslie Ash in the film, and here by Serena McCall), all the while looking up to the ultra-cool, Sting-like Ace Face (athletic Dan Baines). But excitement is absent and the fundamental elements don't add up. The entire thing is swamped by almost invariably syrupy, bombastic orchestral arrangements of The Who album by Martin Batchelar and Rachel Fuller (aka Mrs Townshend) that are both typical of the problem and a fatal part of it. One terrific bar scene aside, director Rob Ashford – who has done high-octane work in the past with megastars from Diana Ross to Prince – seldom seems to get fully under the skin of the mod-ish dance moves of the era, and tends to resort to a one-size-fits all contemporary vocabulary that very rarely surprises. Sometimes, it even stumbles into unintentional comedy, especially with the strange, soaring lifts in what is supposed to be a brutal seaside clash. (The same, sad to say, is true of the will-this-never-end climax.) Even the usually exhilarating Royal Ballet principal Matthew Ball, cameoing as Jimmy's rock-star hero, blamelessly comes across as bland. As for Christoper Oram's sets and uber-designer Paul Smith's costumes, these, too, seem to fall oddly in and out of the era. Some of the outfits, and one or two of the less video-dominated sets, fit the bill crisply, but there's an overwhelming sense of lip service being paid to the 1965 setting, without ever making you feel as if you're there. So much, then, for the rock'n'roll – what about the sex and drugs? Jimmy's frustration comes across loud and clear, and the masturbation scene is present and correct, but without packing any sort of illicit, desperate or tragic punch. As for the uppers, there is, to be fair, a character actually called 'Drugs' (played by the aptly seductive Amaris Gilles), decked out in azure to, I'm assuming, reflect that Jimmy's amphetamine of choice is the so-called 'blue'. At one point, he even takes to the air like The Snowman as a high hits him. But again, there is no real menace; no thrill of the forbidden or sense of a downward spiral. The conceptual oddness of Drugs is continued in the quartet of characters who intermittently accompany Jimmy, depending on the situation – one, I gather, for each of The Who's four members. There's the Tough Guy (Roger Daltrey), the Lunatic (Keith Moon), the Romantic (Townshend) and the Hypocrite (purely, I must stress, by process of elimination, John Entwistle). But these amount to nothing more than dramaturgical affectation, watering down Jimmy's sense of gnawing isolation and leaving you scratching your head because it is never clear which one is which; you just wish they'd scarper. What is so particularly sad about this show – endorsed by Townshend, conceived with love, and with all performers doing their level best – is the disappointment that lies in wait not for people who already know the music and the film, but for those who don't. The uninitiated could well come away from this wondering what the big fuss is, not only about Quadrophenia but about one of the most skin-prickling rock bands of all time – and it makes me want to weep.
