Skip to main content

Stomp! Reaches the Parts Other Shows Haven't Bin

I grew up in Belfast in the sixties and seventies... so I was familiar with all sorts of drumbeats by the time I moved to Edinburgh in the mid eighties... I had even had experience of dustbins and bin lids being used as percussion instruments in the West Belfast Hunger Strike protests...
But at the first Fringe Sunday I attended I was blown away by a group of guys from Brighton known as "PookieSnackenBurger", who were a dance/druming act using dustbins. Later I had the privilege of teching for them at the Lyceum as part of the Pick of the Fringe event for Amnesty International... Soon after they were behind one of the best-remembered Heineken ads... But they themselves never became a household name...




Fast-forward fifteen years and a show which had been the BIG thing in London, was now touring the world. My wife and I tried to get tickets when we were in Paris for our 10th Anniversary, but no dice... 5 years further on we tried when on our anniversry trip to London... but again with no joy... but today 25 years after first seeing Pookiesnackenburger, we saw their slick offspring "Stomp..." in the company of our two children.
There's a big difference between a 90minute main-house show and a 5 minute fringe act, but there was no dilution of the fun in this transition, and no sign of it being stale after 20 plus years on the road. We all smiled from start to finish... From the antics of some of the most useless stage-sweepers in history (but where did they find such robust brushes? Try that with anything from your local hardward store and it wouldn't last 30 seconds) through to where they began all those years ago, with their high-octane dustbin dance... They threw everything into it, including the kitchen sink.
I now fear for what the kids will now do with our pots/pans/bins/newspapers in the coming weeks... But at least they will at least thump each other rythmically...
If you get the chance to see it, do... It is one of the most energetic, imaginative and amusing shows I have seen in a long time, and I hope it isn't a quarter of a century before I see it again.
I wonder, however, how things might have turned out, all those years ago, if wheelie bins had already replaced dustbins in Brighton?
Counters

Comments

stuartieb said…
my wife and i went to see it also last week. we missed it when we lived in England, but somehow it felt more authentic experiencing it on home soil for the first time. after the show was over the sound of random rhythms could be heard emanating from the bathrooms and almost all the fixtures and furniture in the waterfront hall. very enjoyable experience indeed.
S:

Popular posts from this blog

A Woman of no Distinction

Don't often post other people's stuff here... But I found this so powerful that I thought I should. It's a performance poem based on John 4: 4-30, and I have attached the original YouTube video below. A word for women, and men, everywhere... "to be known is to be loved, and to be loved is to be known." I am a woman of no distinction of little importance. I am a women of no reputation save that which is bad. You whisper as I pass by and cast judgmental glances, Though you don’t really take the time to look at me, Or even get to know me. For to be known is to be loved, And to be loved is to be known. Otherwise what’s the point in doing either one of them in the first place? I WANT TO BE KNOWN. I want someone to look at my face And not just see two eyes, a nose, a mouth and two ears; But to see all that I am, and could be all my hopes, loves and fears. But that’s too much to hope for, to wish for, or pray for So I don’t, not anymore. Now I keep to myself And by that

Psalm for Harvest Sunday

A short responsive psalm for us as a call to worship on Harvest Thanksgiving Sunday, and given that it was pouring with rain as I headed into church this morning the first line is an important remembrance that the rain we moan about is an important component of the fruitfulness of the land we live in: You tend the land and water it And the earth produces its abundance. You crown each year with your bounty, and our storehouses overflow with your goodness. The mountain meadows are covered with flocks and the valleys are filled with corn; Your people celebrate your boundless grace They shout for joy and sing. from Psalm 65

Anointed

There has been a lot of chatter on social media among some of my colleagues and others about the liturgical and socio-political niceties of Saturday's coronation and attendant festivities, especially the shielding of the anointing with the pictured spoon - the oldest and perhaps strangest of the coronation artefacts. Personally I thought that was at least an improvement on the cloth of gold canopy used in the previous coronation, but (pointless) debates are raging as to whether this is an ancient practice or was simply introduced in the previous service to shield the Queen from the TV cameras, not for purposes of sacredness, but understandable coyness, if she actually had to bare her breast bone in puritan 1950s Britain. But as any church leader knows, anything performed twice in a church becomes a tradition. All this goes to show that I did actually watch it, while doing other things - the whole shooting match from the pre-service concert with yer wumman in that lemon-