Stomp

Being in London we're lucky that we can attend top class shows whenever we feel like it. Monday night we went to see Stomp.

It was really physical for the 8 performers.  They used their feet, hands, elbows, sticks, tubes, brooms, basketballs and spoons to make rhythm and music on the floor, match boxes (my favourite), Zippo lighters, kitchen sinks, plastic and metal chemical drums and buckets, pots, tins, takeaway cups, plastic and paper bags, newspapers, and I'm sure I've missed some.

The performers were cheeky with us and with each other and conveyed their messages totally without words - some of the expressions were just classic.  There was a mix of training backgrounds, from percussion to dance, but each were solidly grounded in rhythm.  Even amongst this high level of performer, it was clear that rhythm came naturally to some and was deliberate for others.  It appeared that some of their performance was intimately choreographed (across the world stage) and some was improvised.

To finish, it was all brought together in an interactive 'jam session' where each performer brought out one of their props to add to the overall cacophony of rhythm and we even tried our hands at it - it's harder than it looks!

There were a couple of school groups watching the performance - perfect in our opinion: it's a 'show' in London's west end, it's high energy, it's funny, it's engaging, it's short (1.5h) with no interval (can't lose kids), it's interactive.  There were bound to be a bunch of kids hitting stuff all the way home (these kids definitely did).