Stomp

Synopsis

StompP finds beauty and music in the mundane - from boots and bins to zippo lighters and plumber's plungers - everything including the kitchen sink becomes part of this production as a cast of 8 performers make instruments out of brooms and turn hand-clapping into conversation. With energy and toe-tapping exuberance, Stomp takes the clutter and junk of everyday life and transforms it into a theatrical event.

Our Review:

25 September 2002

From its humble origins in street theatre, Stomp has gone on to become a global phenomenon that has spawned five companies and includes an off-Broadway production now in its ninth year, not to mention other spin-offs including an IMAX feature.

Somehow, though, London has mostly missed out, apart from limited runs at speciality dance theatres like Sadler's Wells (in both its old and new incarnations) and seasons at the Royal Festival Hall and Camden's Roundhouse. The show's only now finally getting its first commercial West End run, over a decade after it was first previewed in the capital in 1991 ahead of an Edinburgh Fringe triumph that year.

Meanwhile, however, London has seen a host of dance-based imitators that have used Stomp's plotless, industrial-setting structure to showcase their own wordless specialities, from the Australian Tap Dogs to the South African Gumboots and Scandinavian-originated breakdancing show Bounce<...