Backstage pass

TARA BRADYtakes a few lessons in broom banging and foot-stamping from the cast of Stomp, and finds that it takes skill to make an almighty clatter

ALMOST A CENTURY into its distinguished history, London’s Ambassadors Theatre has weathered both the Blitz and Vivien Leigh’s storming 1935 stage debut. Today, the London venue is empty save for a few professional Stompers and a mighty sound. Who knew that a few broom handles and headless hammers could thunder more impressively than Scarlet O’Hara and the Luftwaffe combined?

“Steady, love,” says veteran Stomp performer Philip as we almost clock him with a pole for the second time this afternoon. Hitting people with a broomstick, we soon learn, is considerably less accomplished than missing them.

“I’m only joking,” he laughs, as he gestures backstage. You don’t have to go too far behind the curtain before you happen on the production’s eye-injury station. Black eyes are not common among this professional troupe. But when work means juggling bin-lids and percussive stick fighting, they are sometimes inevitable. Splinters provide a second major occupational hazard. Falling off drums and bins remains an outside, but distinct possibility.

This season marks Stomp's 20th year on the West End. The six-man, two-woman show, which started life as a humble street act in Brighton, has, down the years, appeared everywhere from the Academy Awards to Sesame Street, all the while playing sold-out venues from Vegas to Victoria.

Next month, the show returns to Dublin’s Grand Canal Theatre for its first Irish engagement in 10 years. “Finally,” says relieved Irish Stomper Aideen Gallagher. “When I explain to people back home in Drogheda what it is I do they won’t look at me like I’m crazy.”

The profile is global but the original conceit, as envisaged by troupe progenitors and creative directors Steve McNicholas and Luke Cresswell, remains the same. Auditions are open and democratic; no agents are involved and tattoos and body piercings are most welcome. The current line-up boasts former tap dancers, jazz percussionists and samba soloists. The props are still garbage, not in pejorative sense, but in a recycled flotsam sort of way. The score and the choreography remain hitched together in a kinesthetic symphony of thumping feet, battered tin pans and staccato clapping. Just picture an orchestra composed entirely of one-man bands improvising a Haka from down a dumpster alleyway.

Much of the appeal, notes Gallagher, “comes from the same basic impulse kids have to hit pots and pans with spoons. It’s a heartbeat and it’s fun and it’s banging as loud as you can. Even doing it every night when you can rely on muscle memory and repetition to do the job for you, it’s still fun. Nobody who works on Stomp ever wants to leave.”

She’s right. There’s something about pounding boots and bin-lids that works awfully well as an all-ages entertainment. “Some nights you look at the audience,” adds Hughes. “And at the beginning of the evening you can usually spot the drummers. It doesn’t take them too long before the urge to slap along gets too much for them. After an hour, everybody’s doing it.”

Stomp'11 is at Dublin's Grand Canal Theatre, March 1st-6th; grandcanaltheatre.ie