Main content
This programme is not currently available on Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ iPlayer

Quadrophenia: Can You See the Real Me?

In his home studio and revisiting old haunts in Shepherd's Bush and Battersea, Pete Townshend opens his heart and his personal archive to revisit the Who's 1973 album Quadrophenia.

In his home studio and revisiting old haunts in Shepherd's Bush and Battersea, Pete Townshend opens his heart and his personal archive to revisit 'the last great album the Who ever made', one that took the Who full circle back to their earliest days via the adventures of a pill-popping mod on an epic journey of self-discovery.

But in 1973 Quadrophenia was an album that almost never was. Beset by money problems, a studio in construction, heroin-taking managers, a lunatic drummer and a culture of heavy drinking, Townshend took on an album that nearly broke him and one that within a year the band had turned their back on and would ignore for nearly three decades.

With unseen archive and in-depth interviews from Townshend, Roger Daltrey, Keith Moon, John Entwistle and those in the studio and behind the lens who made the album and 30 page photo booklet.

Contributors include Pete Townshend, Roger Daltrey, Ethan Russell, Ron Nevison, Richard Barnes, Irish Jack Lyons, Bill Curbishley, John Woolf, Howie Edelson, Mark Kermode and Georgiana Steele Waller.

1 hour, 10 minutes

Last on

Tue 16 Dec 2014 00:35

Ethan Russell's photography

Ethan Russell was an American photographer who had already shot the cover of The Beatles' album Let It Be, and was hired by Pete Townshend to recreate the mod world of 1964 when the album Quadrophenia was made in '73.

Pete wanted to use the image of 'Jimmy' riding his scooter as the album cover, but fellow Who memberΒ Roger Daltrey wanted images of the band...

Revisiting the studio

"As we walked into the doctor’s waiting room there was a clue: a slanted ceiling with acoustic panels still there from the 70s..."

Credits

Role Contributor
Producer Matt O'Casey
Director Matt O'Casey
Executive Producer Iain Funnell

Broadcasts