If Ballet is about Rhythm, Movement, Coordination, Subtlety of Expression and Meaningful Communication with the audience, then this is Ballet. But not like ballet you have seen before - no tutus, no pretty colours, no orchestra.
The stage is a ramshackle collection of cauldrons, buckets, oil drums, on a backgoround of road signs - Go, Stop, 60. At each side of the stage are sets of loudspeakers, three large and one enormous.
A large man with a mohican hair style, multiple tattoos and baggy clothing starts sweeping up - but more rhythmically than one might expect - and this develops into a high speed sweeping- brush routine, loud, musical and clever, with the audience encouraged to join in the clapping at appropriate points. Eight players - the troupe for the evening out of a group of sixteen - the others are on tomorrow, I guess - dance with the brushes with such vigour that at least four lose their heads and have to be replaced - that's the brushes not the players.
The evening continues with variations on the music that is made from matchboxes, cigarette packets, cutlery, hosepipes, plastic cups, and plastic bags- I knew there must be a use for them - and truly, four kitchen sinks. These were interspersed with the development of individual personalities from the players - one who is the boss, another the idiot, somewhere in between is always a loser whose show is destroyed in mid act, a comic who does a brief transvestite demonstration, two women who beat hell out of the drums, and a grand finale, where the audience are brought to their feet to participate in a battering finale on all the equipment on the stage, with the addition of four old style silver metal dustbins and their lids..
As for the tutus, they are represented by a motley collection of baggy pants, torn t-shirts, inelegant shorts, and a spattering of tattoos.
Stomp was created in 1991, and is directed by Luke Cresswell and Steve McNicholas, with a cast recruited from round the world and melded into an ensemble of rhythm and magic, almost unbelievable in its performance - but I saw and it is true.
John Johnson reviewed this production in Northampton