You have to know that all the theatreshows in London are being advertised as “The best show in London” and “Not to be missed” and then the name of a newspaper and the obligatory “*****”.
So I went to see Stomp, in the Vaudeville theatre on Strand. Because I like drums and percussion and rhythm, and can remember very clearly how extatic I got watching Yamato – The drummers of Japan, when I saw them in Aarhus a while ago.
So Stomp: “Stomp is an explosion of movement and rhythms that is at all times entertaining and on occasion amusing or thrilling.”
Sounded interesting. And it was fun in the beginning, but after 15 minutes I got kind of bored. The show is basically just one long chain of people hammering on stuff. On sweepers, on wood, on metal on everything. And they do it in a very rhytmic way, and the audience loved it, I could tell. But I wasn’t too impressed. Maybe because I have seen so many cool things already here in London (Blue Men and big Elephants had no problem whatsoever to impress me).
But after them banging on for a while I got irritated. The next act began. A few people entered the stage with newspaper. And I thought – if they are going to make noise with them too I am going to bang my head against the chair.
So today I have a headache.
If you want to see concept theatre, go see the Blue Man, if you want to see a decent play, there are plenty to pick from, and I don’t mean We Will Rock You or Mama Mia. My ticket for Kevin Spacey’s The Moon for the misbegotten arrived in my mailbox yesterday, and I can’t wait to see him. I’m convinced that he is going to be really good.
Not the right percussion maybe. We once saw Kodo at Vredenburg. We were on the second row. But it wasn’t too loud, just loud. And you could feel every chromosome in your boddy vibrating with the rhythm. They are utterly brilliant. If you ever get a chance: see, er, hear and feel them!
That’s body with one ‘d’ of course…
I have seen Stomp in Groningen in De Oosterpoort. I liked it. They made music on evrything, oildrums, plastic buckets, etc. They even made music with water. Yeah, I liked it. But Yamato is also in De Oosterpoort. So that’s great too? I haven’t seen them yet.