Quadrophenia at The Mayflower 10.09.09

The plan for today is to watch Quadrophenia and have a Q&A session with the actors.

We had to be at back at school today for 8:50pm, All the 9 Brookfield Students were waiting in the Car Park for the Coach to arrive, it was Twenty minutes late. Although, it didn't matter so much because we didn't miss any of the show or anything, so we got on with the two other schools.

It was a short drive to The Mayflower, and we got off the bus went in and sat down.

The first half, well I think everyone was amazed at how good it was! I know I didn't expect anything like that! It was truly amazing! The opening scene was very dramatic, and just had the one Jimmy - the main Jimmy (The romantic one) singing 'Can you see the real me?' with smoke all around him which was a great opening. It was really clever that they had 4 different Jimmy's they had the Romantic one, The hypocritical one, The Lunatic one and The Tough Guy. The name 'Quadrophenia' is a variation of the word Schizophrenia, which means split personalities. So having 4 different Jimmy's is a very creative way of showing that. All 4 of them are usually on at the same time, showing all the mixed feelings of Jimmy at certain points in the show.

They also had a younger Jimmy to show his life with his parents as a child.

The second half was also just absolutely amazing! They did a really good scene where Jimmy's dad died, Jimmy's father was a bad man, an abuser, he would hit his mother. And when his father finally died from a heart attack at his funeral the four Jimmy's were there. It was very well done because they had each Jimmy go up to him and do something according to their personality, the Lunatic shouted at him, the romantic one cried etc...

They had a great moving stage as well it was a big circle of metal which turned round so the Jimmy's could express their feelings by climbing on it, when there were parties people would be turning in it. And for one of the last scene al 4 Jimmy's were standing on it, one with his mother, one with his father, one with the girl, one with Ace as the bell boy. At first they were turning on the moving stage and hitting or arguing with their 'partner' then as it went on they gradually all simultaneously stopped fighting and just hugged or kissed each other. That was a really great scene, showing the four Jimmy's became one at that moment.  

The Performance was so flowing, and the actors were so great in it and gave so much energy! The choreography was so complexly done too. They had staged fighting as well which was so cleverly done, it looked just so real and the actors/actresses put real emotion and energy into the whole performance. It was great how they had the band at the back of the stage, visible at all times. It made you feel like they were part of it because they were all dressed as mods and rockers and really getting into it too. The only thing i would criticize is that if you didn't know what the performance was about you wouldn't really understand, it is very hard to get your head around all the characters and what's going on because it's mostly metaphoric.

By the end, it was a standing ovation, everyone in the audience standing and clapping. They finished with an encore of 'My Generation'. Everyone was singing along even all the teachers who came with us! After it was finished we stayed behind and 4 of the cast members came out and asked any questions we had, they were very friendly and told us all the slip ups that happened and all the backstage stuff.

Afterwards we saw the cast outside the pub next door, we tried to get a picture with them but Jasmine's camera wasn't working. A lot of people got autographs though. The coach home was so loud; everyone was talking about the show and how good it was. The coach coming back was so much more lively then the coach going there!

It was such a great performance. Much, much better than I thought it would be, I'm glad we got to work on it at Fareham College so we could get an understanding of it, meaning we could really get into the show.


(RL1)(RL2)(RL5)A strength of mine today was being respectful and watching the show and asking questions at the end.
A weakness and target for improvement is to  take notes so i could use it in my critique.
A skill i've learnt today is how to analyse the show and pay attention to detail.