BRIT SAYS ‘HELLO’
London’s Charlie Stemp hops the pond to join Bernadette Peters in ‘Dolly!’
JUST five nights ago, Charlie Stemp was in London, taking his final bow in the holiday pantomime “Dick Whittington” at the Palladium next to West End royalty Elaine Paige. After the curtain fell at 9 p.m., the 24-year-old British charmer raced home, packed his life away and boarded a flight to New York. He was off to yet another theater, and yet another diva.
On Saturday, Stemp will make his Broadway debut as the silly sidekick Barnaby in “Hello, Dolly!” This time, he’ll be cheered on alongside Bernadette Peters, who makes her debut as the titular matchmaker. His last week has been a sprint.
“Everyone was buying me sodas to keep me awake during the Sitzprobe [a rehearsal in which the cast first sings alongside the full orchestra] because I kept falling asleep!” Stemp tells The Post over lunch at Joe Allen. “Everybody’s asking how I’m doing.”
The answer is “extraordinarily well.” Like a sudden downpour, he’s rapidly risen from the chorus to West End star. Last year in London, Stemp was the leading man in the musical “Half a Sixpence.” Just three years earlier, he had been wearing an ape suit in “Wicked.”
“Monkey No. 3!” he says.
His success, funnily enough, was kick-started by a wound.
Stemp, then 19, was studying dance at Laine Theatre Arts in Epsom, England, when he took a nasty tumble.
“I injured myself quite badly in my final year of college, and I sat there and thought, ‘I can’t dance. What can I do?’ ” The answer: “Might as well go to singing lessons.”
He did, and the lessons forged a lasting love of musical theater and led to that gig in “Wicked.” After a year, he toured around the world in “Mamma Mia!” Then, he had his big break in “Sixpence.”
Stemp has extraordinary confidence, but it wavered a bit when he first met Bette Midler while shadowing a performance of “Dolly!” two months ago.
“[Midler] was in costume in-between scenes. I didn’t want to go over and say who I was because I didn’t want to be in the way at all,” he says. “So, I’m watching Taylor [Trensch, the original Barnarby] onstage, and she says, ‘Hey you! Come over here!’”
Stemp nervously approached the star stammering, and said, “I’m Charlie . . . I’m taking over for Taylor in the new year.”
“Oh! Swell to meet ya, honey!” she replied. And without missing a beat, Midler walked onto the stage where Stemp will be making ’em laugh for the next year.