He’s a West End fixture who’s already been compared to Fred Astaire. As he prepares to hop from Mary Poppins to the Gershwin musical Crazy for You, Stemp talks rowdy audiences, ice baths, and taking the bus in ballet tights
When Charlie Stemp signed his contract for the West End transfer of the musical Crazy for You, one of its conditions was an ice bath in his dressing room. “The producers were amazing,” he says, and tells of how the Gillian Lynne theatre had to be refurbished to get it in.
It was not, as it sounds, a diva-like demand akin to a bathtub of orange Smarties. It was vital to his high-energy turn as wannabe dancer Bobby – a part that requires him to be on stage for the majority of the musical, dancing everything from ballet to tap to modern. He dazzled in the role during the musical’s original run at Chichester festival theatre, and the ice bath saw him through it.
