GIVEN there is no dialogue, the alarm bells started ringing when the start of the show was delayed for a couple of days due to “script amendments”.

What that usually means is that it’s been panned by critics and audience alike and the red pen has been brought out as a desperate measure to rescue a floundering show.

Based on The Who’s magnificent eponymous 1973 album, which also spawned the excellent 1979 film of the same name, this stage adaptation is a well distant third in the “Quad” stakes.

Set in the fast-changing world of the Sixties, when teenagers were rebelling against the obsequious ways of their pre-war parents, the original concept of the album marks a time when generational aspirations and outdated morals collide.

The young cast and the band were excellent, but it felt like a square peg forced into a round hole. Quadrophenia is a classic set of songs but this ain’t rock and roll. It’s theatre which, when set against the greatest art form, sounds like a glorified karaoke.

The lead character, Jimmy, is portrayed in four ways – the romantic, the hard man, the hypocrite and the lunatic – and each of his spilt personalities is played by a different actor.

There’s no depth in any Jimmy character and the other actors on show might well not have been there, it’s so superficial.

Why is the musical genius Pete Townshend doing this?

That was the half-time question.

For as long as Townshend and Roger Daltrey, the surviving members of The Who, have breath in their bodies, Quadrophenia should be toured with rock and roll sensibilities.

■ Runs until tomorrow. Box Office: 0844-847-2499 Ed Waugh