Skip to main content

Review of UoN Fringe 2019: Can't Quite Hit It by Rumble Theatre Company at The Platform Club, Northampton

One of my favourite films is the 2014 Whiplash, it revolves around drums (one of my favourite and often disregarded instruments) and jazz (one of my guilty pleasures, the Marmite of music indeed). Can't Quite Hit It takes drums as it's theme, and at times has a little of that film about it as well. Maybe it is therefore not a total surprise that it ended up being my favourite show of the Fringe week, and one of the top University shows I have seen over six years.

Bias doesn't come into it though, as performer Rosemarie Sheach has created a top-notch show from her Rumble Theatre Company, superbly and endearingly performed, that non-drum fans I am sure would enjoy as well. It's more a chasing your dream story as Leah, an aspiring drummer, seeks out fame and more importantly the ability to do for a career what you love, and not have to be a team leader at KFC instead. You could replace drummer for any number of things to make everyone in the audience feel the passion in this show, and that is why, beyond the excellent music, this perfect little show would work for all.

Sheach is a captivating and intensely likeable performer, who makes even the bad guys like the troll-like drumming enemy Rob, a delight of huge comic proportions. All the characters in this piece are very broad, deliberately overplayed, but it suits not only Sheach but the piece itself. It is a show simply brimming with fabulous characters and moments, delivered with a passion and more than a lot of skill.

And this is all before the music and the drumming comes into it, there are several musical interludes of brilliant music selection and drumming scenes of course, and they are exceptional, and in the depths of The Platform basement, all the more intense and realistic that you are in some nightclub, which I guess we are of course. Sheach certainly has some skills regarding the drums, and that enhances so much this show beyond a good one, to an incredibly brilliant one.

It is tough to say how much I was enthralled by Can't Quite Hit It, except to state that after having seen 70 odd Flash/Fringe shows, this was only the third that I have been moved to stand for. If I had seen an earlier one in the week, there is no question I would have been back to see this again. Brilliant stuff!

Performance viewed: Saturday 4th May 2019

The Fringe Festival 2019 runs until Sunday 5th May 2019 at The Platform Club Northampton, and one show at Hazelrigg House.

Details here: Fringe Festival 2019
Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

Review of The House She Built at The Black Diamond, Northampton

Independent theatre company Nerve Theatre was founded in January 2025, when its first original production, Broken Party , took to the stage at Benn Hall in Rugby. That was followed the same year by a modern retelling of Frankenstein . Now, for 2026, Nerve Theatre founder Mia Ballard has written and directed The House She Built , staged for three nights at The Black Diamond, Northampton. The House She Built , set in 1950s Hollywood, is a dark thriller influenced by the lives of Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland, Elizabeth Taylor and Audrey Hepburn and their treatment as women within the cogs of Hollywood. Our leading lady here is Nancy Carlton, who returns to Mellor Brothers Productions to make one final film. But something awaits her, and the scene is set for a period thriller that explores the grimy world behind Hollywood's apparently glamorous days. Michaela Clement-Hayes leads the cast as Nancy Carlton, the star troubled by her past, but returning to her old studio for that final mov...
Read more

Review of Paranormal Activity at Milton Keynes Theatre

The low-budget film Paranormal Activity , first released in 2007, has since become the starting point of one of the most prolific horror series ever, with seven films now released in the franchise and another due next year. Its unique down-to-earth style of storytelling, inhabiting what is many people’s real life, with dangers within the house, has contributed greatly to its success. So, from one successful medium franchise, it is no surprise the series was developed for theatre in 2024, with a new story by Levi Holloway (though it borrows heavily from the original film). First performed at Leeds Playhouse before heading to both the West End and Broadway, and now, for 2026, a UK and Ireland tour, which this week arrives at Milton Keynes Theatre. So the question is: has the medium successfully crossed to the other side? Newly married couple, James and Lou, move from Chicago to London in an attempt to escape both of their past lives. However, as events begin to repeat themselves, they re...
Read more

Review of Annie at Milton Keynes Theatre

Annie was first performed now a remarkable fifty years ago at Goodspeed Opera House in Connecticut, and since then, the tale based on a 1920s comic strip and adapted for the stage by Thomas Meehan on book, with music by Charles Strouse, and lyrics provided by Martin Charnin, has become a perennial favourite across the world. Indeed, this version, directed by Nikolai Foster, last appeared at Milton Keynes Theatre in 2023. So, after all these years, does Annie still have that appeal? Set in  1930s New York during the Great Depression,  Annie  follows the life of an orphan abandoned to the care  of its evil matron, Miss Hannigan. Annie seeks escape, and after one failed attempt, she finds herself the chosen Christmas guest of billionaire Oliver Warbucks, and things slowly, hopefully begin to improve for the little but fiercely strong Annie. Leading the adult cast for this tour now as the cruel Miss Hannigan is Claire Sweeney. Sweeney clearly revels in the chance to embr...
Read more