Where do you get your ideas from?

LUKE: Ideas come from anywhere. A lot of it is using manual props because they obviously lend themselves to rhythm and drumming like a broom or hitting a dustbin or hammers - they are quite obvious things. Other ideas are more surreal, like walking on oil drums - just drawing little pictures and wouldn't it be great to have great platform shoes and people walking around on them. The ultimate STOMP. And in small things where you want to introduce visuals as well as sound like Zippo lighters, which is trying to do something which is quiet and it makes you listen and you tune in to it. But they are all everyday objects that you can use, anybody can find and anyone can have a go at.

STEVE: Yes, most of the ideas come from everyday life so they are objects like brooms and Zippo lighters. But whenever we put a routine together we are always thinking not just in terms of the rhythmic qualities, the sound qualities of the instruments, but also what kind of visual impact they have.

How do you choose people for STOMP... are they musicians, dancers or both?

LUKE: I think you are looking for personalities. You can teach someone, to a level, how to drum. And you can also teach someone, to a level, how to perform. But you can't bring out a personality or someone's charisma. That has to be there from the beginning. So you are looking for people obviously with a sense of rhythm but, also with a sense of adventure, who want to take the project on and want to create something themselves. There is a lot of room in STOMP for people to add their own ideas and to bring their characters out and that is very important. And that again stops it from just being self-indulgent non-stop drumming.

It is like you can teach someone the language of STOMP, but it is up to them how they use it. That is the most important when you are looking for someone to perform in STOMP.

Is there anything you can't use to make music?

LUKE: You can make music out of absolutely anything, whether it's, you know, tapping an old Coke can, or picking up pebbles on a beach. It's what you want to do it. And I think the hardest hing with STOMP, when you are trying to put a piece together that is visual, it has got to have some sort of internal logic to it, you know, whether that's a reason that makes it humorous or whether it's just dramatic, but there has to be something, because otherwise we can just tap away for ever. So yes you can. The question is why would you want to.

STEVE: Yes, there are things that we have experimented with and turned down, but only because it didn't fit within the context of the show. Whenever we do put a new piece together we want to know where it is going to fit in the show, how it is going to go with the flow of the show.

Has your show been influenced by coming to America?

LUKE: I think you could say that most of the show was influenced by America before we got there. You know, whether it be from the Nicholas brothers, or all the great tap-dance that came out, or FUNK or rhythms. New York, or our imagination, our version of New York in our heads has always been an influence in STOMP.

STEVE: Yes, I think an important thing to say is that when we put the show together, we certainly were influenced by a lot of Old American performances and films. But at the same time, we are influenced by groups like, obviously, Kodo from Japan or Burundi Drummers from Africa, who can make a whole show out of rhythm which is obviously what we intended to do. But we also wanted to make it peculiarly British and that usually ends up being eccentrically British.

STEVE: The show, STOMP, is now in its fifth year. We put the show together thinking well, maybe something will happen with it. We basically stuck our necks out and put together this eight-piece show for the Edinburgh Festival in '91 and it just took off from there. We went from there almost straight away to Australia to a tour of all the festivals in South East Australia, and we've not looked back since.

Can anyone do this?

LUKE: I think anyone can do STOMP. We've done shows in Brighton, England and Melbourne, Australia where we have taken fifteen or twenty extra people, from any walk of life, not as auditions, just people who are keen, and worked them in to a show. Anyone can do STOMP to a level, obviously it needs to be at different levels. Some people can do, you know, you give them the imagination, you give them the ammo, and they'll do incredible things. Some people will only go so far. But everybody can make rhythm out of their hands and their feet and everybody can drum. Everybody does drum all the time. That's partly what, audiences get out of the show. The amount of people that come up and say I bang on my kitchen table, or I muck about with my broom all the time, but I never thought of making it into a show.

Does STOMP have a message?

STEVE: If there is a message (which everyone seems to expect from theatre), it is that you can make something out of nothing. Using junk , household and industrial objects, by its very nature, challenges the issue of waste and challenges the notion of culture as being highbrow or detached (ie, you don't have to buy a cello or a drum kit to make music). There's also an element of ritual in our work: everyone generally comments that some of the pieces in the show are almost tribal. STOMP has been described as a musical without music... Even though the show is really just a succession of different pieces, there is an element of getting to know the performers' character better through the show, so it is also about group dynamics and how wildly contrasting personalities can work together.

Beyond that, it is really down to the attitude of the group. We want to amuse, uplift and inspire. We feel we've succeeded when the audience leaves trying to play every object in their path as they leave the theatre.

What do you expect your audience to leave with?

LUKE: STOMP is a very up show, a very positive show, and I think the idea is an extremely simple idea, and I don't think there is any question about that, but it's performed with immense enthusiasm, with a lot of sweat and a lot of energy. I think what it leaves an audience with is the sense of: well it is such a simple idea and yet it works so well. "I had an idea I've never done, I'm going to go and try it", and it doesn't necessarily mean a rhythmic idea, it could be any idea. Well, I hope it is a positive injection of "go and do it. Get up, get off your bum and do it."