Her Majesty’s Theatre. 27 Aug 2013
When Stomp emerged in the 1992 Adelaide Fringe - some fast and fit blokes from England drumming and dancing with rubbish bins - we adored them and threw awards at them.
We knew our stuff.
A couple of decades later they are a big, slick world-touring sensation. They still bang on bins and stamp their feet. They are still kitted out like fairly scruffy construction workers. But their show has spread huge, whizzy, imaginative wings.
If it resonates, they can play it - even shopping trolleys, bits of plumbing pipe and newspaper.
Stomp is the creation of Luke Cresswell and Steve McNicholas and it features an array of dancing drummers few of whom, if seen in the supermarket, would strike one as the dancing and drumming type. They're quite the bodily extremes from the tiny whip of a taut, gum-chewing woman to a long-haired fellow who can flash a Buddha-like tummy. The lead dancer is a huge man. There's a chap with more muscle than the Michelin man. They come from all over the place and they perform all over the place - most famously at the London Olympics. So they don't disappoint. They delight.
They are loud and funny, deft and dextrous. Their strength and stamina is terrific. It is a very strenuous show. But there are quiet moments when individual characters are brought forth - the jaded brunt of the joke character, the quaint clown, the smarty. Then there are the spectacles - none greater than the performers dangling and drumming aloft in the semi-darkness.
Then there's the team in marching band mode equipped with percussive kitchen sinks. They're wildly unwieldy and it turns out they have the full washing up inside them. It's an ingenious and very winning routine.
The supermarket trolley scene is slick and wonderful, too. The trolleys are bespoke, so to speak. They have strong base frames and wheels which go where they are meant to go. They could never have been sourced from an Australian supermarket.
The Zippo lighter routine is a classic. Those lighters in the dark, synchronised as both rhythm and flame. The scent of Zippo fuel wafts into the auditorium and the audience goes wild.
The show is all focus and split-second timing. The co-ordination of the percussionists is as tight as the proverbial tick. There is no room for error. A lot of the time they are playing with big sticks and barrels. They also play with brooms and dustpans - and the funniest mop in the world.
There's stomping and banging, pinging and ringing, tapping and rapping, clicking and clapping, patting and slapping - a seemingly endless array of percussive possibilities.
The audience gets right into its participation, well urged by the Stompers. Indeed, the audience gets right into Stomp and, at the end of the show, it rises en masse to give standing ovation.
That says it all. It's a beaut show.
Samela Harris
When: 27 Aug to 1 Sep
Where: Her Majesty's Theatre
Bookings: bass.net.au
