Charlie Stemp Interview: 'I could get elevation on my jumps that others couldn't'

'It’s not until you listen to Cole Porter or George Gershwin being played with a full orchestra that you really know the meaning of wanting to dance,’ says Charlie Stemp, with a broad grin. ‘When we were launching the show, the band started playing 'Too Darn Hot' and I had to be told three times to stop moving. I just couldn’t help myself – it’s so gorgeous.’

His enthusiasm for the Cole Porter classic Kiss Me, Kate is pouring over a Zoom call from Belsize Park. The cast of Bartlett Sher’s revival, which opened at the Barbican Theatre in June 2024, is rehearsing in a gracious old council building. ‘With sprung floors!’ Stemp adds, with some excitement. ‘For a dancer, that’s a must-have. We won’t get that onstage with a revolve, so I’m enjoying it while I can.’

It’s hard not to feel that Stemp is the kind of character who enjoys just about everything. With his shock of curly hair and his wide grin, he seems born to play the kind of roles that have made his name – the irrepressible Arthur Kipps in Half a Sixpence, good-hearted Bert in Mary Poppins, the energetic wannabe song-and-dance man Bobby in Crazy for You.

All three won him Olivier Award nominations. In British Musical Theatre terms, his talent is a rare one. He can sing, he can dance, he can act – and he excels in shows that recall the genre’s Golden Age, lavish spectaculars full of tunes that became popular hits. Yet Stemp’s journey to this place is one that still surprises him.

‘I don’t think I had an end goal or idea. It was always more just that I really liked singing and dancing and acting. I liked showing off. So it was just like following a bright light – you don’t really know where it goes, but you do know that it’s the right way.

‘If you’d told me when I was 18, on the first day of my professional career at the Orchard Theatre in Dartford, that I’d be coming back to the same place in 12 years’ time to promote my ninth West End contract, that this would be my life, I wouldn’t believe it. I feel so fortunate that I’ve had the opportunity, the luck and the hard work in me. I feel very grateful.’

Charlie Stemp in Half A Sixpence in 2016 (image credit: Manuel Harlan)

His story begins as a hyperactive boy growing up in South London, excelling at sports such as football, judo and rugby, but still with energy to burn. His mother – ‘Bless her’ – set him off on a career as a child model, starring in television advertisements ‘just to be creative’.

‘I think it was for me to have something to do,’ he says. ‘I had too much energy. If you google “Tamagotchi advertisements” and scroll down far enough, you’ll eventually see me.’

By secondary school, he was struggling to fit his personality to academic life, and ended up at a local theatre school, the now defunct Belcanto London Academy in Eltham. It was there that he began to dance. ‘It wasn’t something I wanted to do in all honesty. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like the ballet tights and jock straps, but then when I was about 13, I suddenly got it. Because I was so energetic, I could get elevation on my jumps that others couldn’t, and the older I got, the more I realised I had the strength that I could add to it. All the sport I did when I was growing up added to the balance.

‘It gave me the physical enjoyment of sport, but it also became the thing through which I was able to express myself the most. In art, there’s nothing more enjoyable than doing something that just happens in the moment, and dance has always been a way for me to express that side of myself.’

His original dream was to be in Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures company – and he did once audition for a role in Swan Lake. ‘I went to the front of the class, and I tell you, I said to myself, “I’ve got that job.” I thought I’d booked it.’

He hadn’t. ‘I later found out that Matthew thought my feet were terrible.’ He adopts a sad expression. ‘So yeah, I was pretty gutted about that at the time because I’d grown up watching Swan Lake and especially The Car Man .’

He eventually met Bourne when he appeared in the 2019 West End revival production of Mary Poppins opposite Zizi Strallen in the titular role, a musical Bourne co-choreographed with Stephen Mear. Did he raise his failed audition? ‘He was very polite and he said he remembered me. And then we moved the conversation on.’

That audition came after he had completed his training at Laine Theatre Arts in Epsom and landed his first job in the chorus of Wicked. By then he had learnt to sing, which also stood him in good stead when he joined the international tour of Mamma Mia! ‘I tore the cartilage in my knee and couldn’t go to dance class so the teachers at Laines suggested I pushed singing while I was injured. I did three lessons a day for about three months and came off the back of it good enough to sing in an ensemble, but from there I loved it enough to take a lot of lessons.’

His passion for the musicals of the Golden Age came later, too. As a child, he would watch films such as Singin’ in the Rain over and over again – and he was obsessed with Dick Van Dyke singing ‘Me Ol’ Bamboo’ in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

But he only discovered the joy of the classic musicals live onstage after he left college. ‘One of the main things I’m starting to realise is that the issue with theatre is that you can’t afford it at a younger age. How are you supposed to? I don’t want to get into a rant, but I would have had so much more of an understanding of theatre if I could have afforded theatre.’

As it was, it was only when he was performing professionally and meeting other actors that his voyage of discovery began. ‘I went to watch some friends in West Side Story when they were on tour and that was the first example of old-school, glory days of Musical Theatre that I remember watching. It was amazing. I remember feeling this is just so mind-blowingly beautiful, but I felt sad and disjointed because it didn’t feel something I could be a part of.’

He pauses, pensive for once. But suddenly the smile is back. ‘I would encourage everyone to watch a musical. Or be in them. Personally, I think being in them is better than watching them.’

He is now a total fan of the classics. ‘Those shows don’t apologise for a lack of context. They’ve got dream ballets!’ he says, in mock amazement. ‘You wouldn’t get away with a dream ballet now. Those homages to a choreographer. There’s one in Guys and Dolls, in Oklahoma! – and the same in West Side Story. Nowadays, you wouldn’t see the cast of SIX getting a lot of dry ice onstage, changing the lights and suddenly start dancing. I love that side of things.’

Crazy For You at the Gillian Lynne Theatre (image credit: Johan Persson)

But it wasn’t Rodgers and Hammerstein, or Frank Loesser, who turned Stemp into a star. It was a new adaptation by George Stiles and Anthony Drewe (alongside revisions of David Heneker’s original songs), with a book by Julian Fellowes, of the 1963 musical Half a Sixpence, originally conceived as a vehicle for British pop star Tommy Steele. The show, produced by Cameron Mackintosh, premiered at Chichester in 2016 with Stemp replacing the more established Bryan Dick who pulled out to appear in Hobson’s Choice.

Overnight, he was acclaimed as a new musical star. ‘One of those fairy-tale performances that’s the stuff of legend,’ wrote the Sunday Telegraph, excitedly. I was at the premiere and vividly remember the warmth of his personality and the dazzle of his dancing. ‘That night was a blur,’ Stemp says. ‘I didn’t know what was going on. I think I was lucky enough to stay away from the idea that it was the most important moment of my professional life. But that’s what it was.

I was given this chance by one of the most powerful people in Musical Theatre and I think one of the things that was so helpful to me was that I was a little bit clueless about the reality of the situation because I always try to go into everything with positivity, a sense of kindness and a sense of hard work. It wasn’t something I was aware of until after. It was only when we went into the West End that I went, “OK, this is a big moment for me.”’

He praises his director Rachel Kavanaugh and the cast for their support. But most of all, he is glad that he didn’t win the Olivier that year. ‘Not winning changed things,’ he says at his characteristic rattle-gun speed. ‘It sounds negative but it was positive. Andy Karl won [for Groundhog Day] and he totally deserved to. But because I didn’t win but had been nominated, there was still a lot of talk about it.

‘Not winning actually helped because the industry was intrigued to see what else I could do.’ He draws breath. ‘Also, I was too young and that could have made me arrogant. I would have felt I had completed something, whereas in reality I’ve learnt so much since then.’

Mary Poppins (image credit: Matt Crockett)

What he actually learnt next was how to be in a Broadway musical, when he took fifth billing in the cast of Hello, Dolly! as store clerk Barnaby Tucker, alongside first Bernadette Peters and then Bette Midler as Dolly Levi. For a born-and-bred Londoner, who loves the parks and open spaces of his city, New York was quite a shock.

‘New York is the most intense city in the world, so for someone like me who is “energy, energy, energy” all the time, I was pretty tired after the first week,’ he admits. ‘I had to change how I dealt with everything and the cast was so wonderful in helping me with that. It was glorious.’ He marvelled at the artistry of Peters. ‘She just came at everything with a truthfulness and an honesty,’ he remembers. ‘She was exceptional.’

Midler mothered him. ‘It was a whirlwind three months. She’s just Bette Midler, there’s no other way of explaining it. She’s so warm. I had this step where I did a big jump off a table and she was like, “Did they make you do this? Should I tell them to stop? Anytime you’re tired, you let me know and we’ll stop it”.’

His love for daredevil antics continued into Mary Poppins where he tap danced upside down on the proscenium arch during ‘Step in Time’. ‘The hardest bit of that number is wearing the harness through the entire dance. It is the weight of a large child and you’re wearing it through a massive, crazy, big tap number. By the time you get upside down, you’re so tired you don’t really have time to think about it. It’s actually OK. Because your feet are on a platform, it just looks as if everybody else is upside down.’

He smiles. Stemp’s pleasure in the physicality of dance, and in knockabout comedy, springs from his early influences. He adored the fun and precise slapstick humour in the films of Norman Wisdom, which his grandfather used to share with him. The physical comedy of Lee Evans was also an inspiration. ‘He is an absolute icon. I’ve loved incorporating some of the moves I learnt from him into shows wherever I can,’ he says.

He met Evans after the first night of Crazy for You, which brilliantly used his own skilful clowning. ‘I don’t get starstruck. I’ve always said, if I met Beyoncé, I’d just say hi. But Lee had such an impact on my life I couldn’t get my words out at first. In the end, I just told him that I really appreciated everything he had done for the arts and said thank you. And he was just lovely. Then when he left, I turned to my mum, and we were both in tears.’

Gene Kelly, another hero, is the dancer to whom he is most often compared. ‘I feel honoured, but it’s no surprise because it’s what I try to aspire to,’ he explains. ‘I loved Fred Astaire but he always had a calmness and an ease that doesn’t sit well on my body. I’m more Gene. I’m always about energy, a little bit of technical jazz and flair, but also about just embracing your own enjoyment of dance. I think that’s what I love about him.’

When he was working on Crazy for You, however, with the legendary director and choreographer Susan Stroman, she tried to bring out the Astaire influence. ‘The Boss – that’s what we called her – would say, “More Fred, less Gene”. She’d say it all the time. I wanted to show the energy, but she wanted to show the calm and she’s absolutely right. When you do it, it works. But it was tricky at first because I just wanted to jump into the song and dance and throw myself around'.

Kiss Me, Kate at the Barbican 2024 (image credit: Johan Persson)

As he progresses in his career, Stemp is learning more and more about what it takes to make musicals speak to modern audiences. He has loved working with Bartlett Sher on Kiss Me, Kate, first seen in 1948, with music and lyrics by Cole Porter and a book by Bella and Samuel Spewack. The story wittily involves a production of a musical version of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew and draws parallels between the action on- and offstage.

The cast is led by Adrian Dunbar and Stephanie J Block. Stemp plays Bill Calhoun/Lucentio opposite Georgina Onuorah as his girlfriend Lois Lane/ Bianca. Bill’s a gambler, and his addiction has already led to some serious discussions behind all the fun. ‘We’ve had some really interesting conversations about his addiction, so from the moment the story starts there’s a serious context that you want to make real and genuine.’

He loves the way Sher takes as his starting point the need for each action to have relevance. ‘Why are we singing? Why are we dancing? We are really digging into why we are doing the things we do, so we have a completely new layer of script. It’s so enjoyable to do a revival of an older musical and give it such relevance. Everything needs to come from a genuine place. If you are dancing, you can go crazy on the dance once you’ve established why you’re dancing. It’s wonderful to dance to a truth.’

It’s the same working with choreographer Anthony Van Laast, who lets Stemp contribute ideas. ‘I’m a bit of a hoofer in a tap sense, someone who understands what the beat needs to be, but all the steps are normally very different every time you do it. I can understand the rhythms in my head, but the dance element is more about creative movement.

‘If I think I have a good idea, Anthony wants to see it, he wants to see what I – and the other dancers – can bring. Sometimes he says, “No, that’s rubbish”, but 90 per cent of the time he’ll go, “Let’s try it”. The creative process feels so open. You feel such pride in just being able to help move something along.’

Half A Sixpence in 2016 (image credit: Manuel Harlan)

Stemp hopes the audience will gain as much enjoyment from the show as he has had making it. ‘The most important thing with theatre of this ilk is escapism,’ he says. ‘I hope we can make people go into another world and give them some semblance of peace, or laughter, or emotion. After that, I hope we can do this beautiful piece of theatre justice.’

As for his own, personal goals, he is carrying on singing, dancing and acting – following that light. ‘Every actor fears where his next job is coming from. It’s the inevitability of our profession. However, I’ve learnt that there is power in taking your hands off the wheel of a ship in a storm. There’s nothing I can do. All I can do is go to the audition and do the best I can.’

This article originally appeared in the June / July 2024 issue of Musicals magazine. Never miss an issue – subscribe today