Quadrophenia – A Mod Ballet offers huge relevance to today

Five years on, he is riding high in his biggest role to date, his first lead role in a major production, AceFace in Quadrophenia – A Mod Ballet running from June 18-21 at Southampton’s Mayflower Theatre, Pete Townshend’s classic brought to the stage by Sadler’s Wells, Extended Play and Universal Music UK.

“It's obviously about the album and it's obviously about the film but we like to think of it as a new work inspired by Pete's original notes for the film. We don't talk of it as being a rendition of the film or the album. It's more about the story telling where Pete was at that time.

“And it’s great to tell the story because it's really relevant for today. I think history repeats itself. As a young person watching the film for the first time a couple of years ago, I got the gist of what it must have been like at that time, but delving into it more deeply for this show, I realised just how much you can relate to what is going on now.

“It is about Jimmy, the struggles and his hopes, about his social world, about his life and his friends and his culture and about drugs, it's about being cool and about being hip and about being trendsetting. And it also surprised me that they had the influence from Italy at that time. Now you can be influenced by anything just by picking up a phone. But back then, the way they wore their suits was just so, so specific.

“Jimmy is a troubled boy. He's a troubled man. I'm 26 and I've not kicked around for a great deal of the time but I would probably say that that we have more troubled men now than we have ever had before. I think it's really tough growing up now, especially the generation just below me. It was all Covid this and Covid that but I don't think the full effects of Covid will come through for a number of years, and I think they will be huge.”

Certainly the pandemic stopped Dan’s career in its tracks when he graduated: “I worked in a school and I could see first-hand how the pandemic was affecting young people.”

But Dan is now making up for lost time: “I have always loved dancing. I think I decided I wanted to make a career at it when I was 15. I just couldn't keep still. I'm an only child and I just kept moving. When I was growing up, I used to jig and dance around all over the place and my mum grabbed me by the shoulders and said ‘Will you stand still! I wanted to tell you something!’ I said to her ‘Mummy, I can't stand still. If I stand still, it hurts!’”

And that has continued in a way: “I'm a great advocate for playing and for fun. As adults, life can get insanely drab and boring but I am insanely fortunate to be in a job like this where I can move with my body and where I can play and where I can do a show like this.”