Gandini Juggling, Smashed, online

Sean Gandini, co-founder of Gandini Juggling with his wife Kati Ylä-Hökkala, has always had the ambition, in his own words, ‘to challenge perceptions about the nature of juggling’ and Smashed is the work that marked the transition of juggling from the big top to theatres.

Smashed is 10 years old this year; but the version that Gandini Juggling is now making freely available online was filmed at the Peacock Theatre in 2017, as part of the London International Mime Festival’s 40th anniversary programme.

It is an enlarged show, bringing together almost all the jugglers who performed in Smashed in its various national and international outings over the years.

It has live music by Camerata Alma Viva Official with mezzo-soprano Emma Parsons, alongside some atmospheric recorded tracks, such as the 1940s popular song I Always Wanted to Waltz in Berlin, which opens the show. Otherwise, it progresses very much like the original smaller-scale Smashed, using as its key props a lot of apples, chairs and sets of crockery.

Smashed is a homage to the late great German choreographer Pina Bausch, whose work is a source of endless fascination for Gandini; the jugglers file onstage in a parade similar to those that constitute the signature of most of Bausch’s works.

Beyond that, they juggle their way into a show full of mind-blowing skill, humour and thought-provoking moments of social commentary – look out for the spine-tingling solo to the English version of Charles Aznavour’s What Makes a Man a Man – building to a riotous finale.

It’s just the sort of thing to cheer us up during our enforced lockdown, and a good show for all the family – we couldn’t recommend it highly enough.

Click HERE to access Gandini Juggling's Smashed