Percussion at full belt and the audience is Stomped
Review: Stomp
Evening Mail Birmingham Comedy Festival
Birmingham Hippodrome.
By Terry Grimley, Birmingham Post
Vibrant, youthful, diverse, buzzing with an energy brought straight off the street - and that's just the audience: Stomp is evidently a popular phenomenon.
Created as long ago as 1991 by Luke Cresswell and Steve McNicholas, this percussion-fest, making creative use of numerous domestic and industrial items, has presumably gone through a series of makeovers since then.
But the dustbin-lids-as-cymbals routine which serves as a trademark image of the show still provides its climax.
It's not just the lids that get bashed, either.
The simple formula is now pretty familiar from this and similar shows. Seven fit young people start by sweeping the stage in complex cross-rhythms and go on to explore the percussive potential of a succession of household items including, literally, the kitchen sink complete with water.
Perhaps the most unexpected items to be pressed into service are several copies local newspapers, featured in a sketch about a solitary reader harassed by newspaper-rustling companions.
And a jolly nice noise they make, too.
Comedy is a thread through many of the sections, with one of the company playing an Ugly Duckling role to milk audience sympathy.
The show is constantly inventive, though in one or two places I wouldn't have minded a bit more invention.
It's a tall order, when you think about it, to sustain a whole evening by bashing the hell out of dustbins, oil drums and what-have-yous.
But unlike at least one of the shows derived from it, Stomp doesn't push its luck with an interval, wisely sticking to a continuous 100-minute sprint.
* Running time: One hour, 40 minutes. Until Saturday 11 October 2003.
Comedy Festival 
