From the end of 2005, Paul worked as instrument design consultant with the creators of Stomp, Luke Cresswell and Steve McNicholas, to create new and unusual instruments for the world premiere of their new production, the Lost and Found Orchestra [LFO].

The general concept was that if Stomp was the percussion section, then what would the rest of the orchestra look like? Here's a chance to see the rest of the orchestra

The world premiere was on 6 May 2006 and there was an initial festival run of 5 shows only - finishing on 9th May.

The commission was to come up with new and interesting approaches to making music from everyday or unusual objects and to translate the ideas of Steve and Luke into sonic reality. Although living 500 miles away in N Ireland, Paul commuted regularly to Brighton to undertake this work.

Update, May 2007 - the show apparently broke all box office records at Sydney Opera House ousting Frank Sinatra - Sorry Frank - Way to go LFO

Instruments included have such eclectic names as Squonkaphones, Pump Monkey Instruments, Vitruvian flute and Hosaphones.

Review - Financial Times *****

Lost and Found Orchestra, Concert Hall, Brighton Dome, Brighton
By Alastair Macaulay
Published: May 8 2006

Black plastic sacks; footballs; parking cones; saws; ventilation tubes; wine-glasses; filing-cabinets; old radiators; plastic water bottles?.?.?.? Leave the Stomp Company in a rubbish dump and they’d make gamelan music from it – and they’d turn that gamelan into theatre. Stomp began life in Brighton in 1991, the result of a 10-year collaboration between Luke Cresswell and Steve McNicholas; and, amid all their international operations, Brighton has remained their base. But after all these years of making music that is basically percussion, Cresswell, McNicholas & Co have felt ready to start adding the other orchestral sonorities. So the Brighton Festival, celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, has commissioned them to present this next breakthrough endeavour: the Lost and Found Orchestra. With 50-plus players coming together, Stomp is going symphonic.

A simple doh-ray-mi scale takes on a new life when you see each note briskly thwacked out on tubes of different lengths by individual performers across the stage phase. A big blaring “brass” chord is played by a group of men blowing down long tubes into traffic cones. Steel saws are bowed like violins.

There’s a deliberate let’s- reinvent-the-wheel mindset at work here. What makes this marvellous is its innocence, and the pleasure with which it reveals new solutions. One duet played on a tableful of wine-glasses sounded celestial, Aeolian; one big percussion number sounded – exuberantly – like an atonal waltz. Those tubes, banged out in scales and other patterns, make a plucked, pizzicato, sound. When those traffic-cone Alpenhorns add their blast to a big ensemble, it’s like some climactic effect in Berlioz or Mahler. But the massive pulse that ticks through much of this music is from our own rock era, and the elite syncopations often take us back to the era when ragtime was turning into jazz.

What hit me hardest is its sheer poetry. But nobody could miss the entertainment value here, and its world premiere on Saturday night was greeted with a full-throated ovation. Stomp is Brighton’s brightest offspring. ?????

Review - The Stage

Lost and Found Orchestra
Stupendous, is the best word to describe the opening concert of the Brighton Festival. Although the promise of saws, bellows, bottles, kettles, pipes and dustbins replacing musical instruments initially filled me with foreboding, I little imagined my feet would be tapping throughout the performance.

Luke Cresswell and Steve McNicholas created the now world famous Stomp in 1991 and the following year it won the award for the most outstanding contribution to the Brighton Festival so it is more than appropriate their latest creation, should celebrate the Festival’s 40th anniversary.

A pianissimo opening with a double bass case being rubbed in rhythm soon to be followed by plastic piping of various lengths creating sounds not unlike a bassoon backed by a chorus of hosepipes and if you thought a dustpan and brush merely got rid of the dust, it makes a delightful ‘shushing’ sound.

The musical saw is a must adding a tuneful accompaniment to the various rhythms but the highlight of this performance has to be the metal tubes hanging high above the stage with six performers also suspended from above striking them in turn in perfect rhythm as they swing to and fro.

Cresswell participates as well as conducts the ensemble, ending with a tremendous climax which had a packed concert hall on its feet. A well deserved standing ovation for a foot tapping performance with great attention to dynamics and sounds that are a sheer delight.

Production information
Concert Hall, Brighton Dome, May 6-9 2006

Directors: Luke Cresswell, Steve McNicholas
Producer: Yes/No Productions
Running time: 2hrs 10mins

Review - The Daily Telegraph

Son of Stomp is a pounding frenzy of thumps, raps and taps
(Filed: 10/05/2006)

Dominic Cavendish reviews Lost and Found Orchestra at Brighton Dome

Having lined up a host of launch events, the organisers of the 40th Brighton Festival must have been gnashing their teeth at the weekend, as The Sultan's Elephant lumbered around central London, disrupting traffic flow and hogging the limelight.

The fact is that the festival had something just as worthy of attention as the bricolage-fashioned Babar up its sleeve: the British première of a follow-up to the global sensation Stomp.

That show took everyday "found" objects - dustbins, brooms, even matchstick boxes - and shook, banged and clanged them into a high-decibel fusion of percussion, movement and visual comedy. In the process, it made rich men of its Brighton-based originators, Luke Cresswell and Steve McNicholas - so perhaps the most impressive thing about Lost and Found Orchestra is that it feels utterly homegrown, as though the pair, and a sizeable entourage of scruffy mates, had tumbled off the streets and begun to busk it, slaves to their infectious, improvised rhythms, without any thought of the profit motive.

The opening section immediately establishes a sense of continuity with the noisy past, as well as a change of direction towards the more overtly melodic. A bloke walks on with a double-bass case and starts to run his fingers over its surface. The case itself becomes the instrument - and he's joined by four others to form a cheeky quintet, building a subtle, syncopated shuffle into a pounding frenzy of thumps, raps and taps.

This son of Stomp is the plumbers', road-diggers' and binmen's answer to the world's great orchestras, or a vision of how those orchestras might look after the apocalypse. Siphons, pipes and traffic cones have been transformed into trumpets; saws are used as violins; large plastic containers as drums. Bin-liners, filing cabinets, shopping trolleys, even growling vacuum cleaners are all part of the polyphonic mix. Most enchantingly, a wooden door filled with beads gets spun round like a giant rain-charm, imitating the roar of sea surf, and a crack troupe of performers swing from the rafters to create an aerial human glockenspiel.

You might be reminded of Philip Glass and Michael Nyman, of early Art of Noise, Tom Waits or even Björk at her most bonkers. Lost and Found Orchestra is its own thing, though. It might be all sound and energetic frenzy, signifying little, but it's the opposite of rubbish - and, after such a triumphant try-out, we haven't heard the last of it.

Back to me .....

It was an absolute privelege to have been involved in the devising and creation of such a tremendous show, Never have I worked so hard, slept so little or eaten with such irregularity; never too have I had the privilege of working with so many talented and welcoming people as the Stomp Company Yes/No Productions -

On the last day I got a souvenir, ok so it's only a battered aul binlid but it's top quality swag and takes pride of place on my wall :)

As well as the ceaseless energy and creativity of Luke and Steve, I give great respect and pay tribute specifically to Mike Roberts and Ward Ransom with whom I worked most closely. I have never seen two guys work so hard for such a long time.

There is also a super network of people involved in the workshop support of the project, Sleaze, Barrel, Squeeze, Danni, Nadia, Hector, Frixx, Toby, JD, Pete & the Stomp crew, I thank them all for their ready support and easy acceptance of the Belfast blow-in.