REVIEW: Piano Smashers, Rob Thompson and Rupert Page, Prague Fringe 2026 ★★★

Inheritance is the byproduct of loss and loss oftentimes includes grief. What happens if the size of the inheritance is much bigger than the grief and shaped like a piano?

Piano Smashers is no Fringe newbie – after successful runs at Brighton Fringe and Edinburgh Fringe, the authorial duo is now bringing this one(-ish) man show to Prague Fringe. The intimate space of Apropo Theatre really suits the show’s style of audience interaction that can be felt from the very moment when first audience members walk into the theatre.

The sound design that accompanies the whole show is – as you’d expect – a piano melody, soft and warm and immediately sets the mood that feels melancholy, introspective, funeral-like almost. This sets an expectation for a heavy show, dealing with heavy themes, yet we couldn’t be more wrong. After a short pre-recorded piece of dialogue beautifully offering context for the story in just a few lines, we’re thrown into a Brechtian demolition of fourth wall and instead of heavy introspection, we get heavy audience interaction and nearly stand up like performance that contrasts strongly with show’s marketing and previously established mood.

Thompson continues to take us on a ride – the rhythm off the show feels more like jazz, though the trailer promised us Debussy. The show isn’t homogenous and at times feels like a mosaic that experiences its own existential crisis – tethering between stand up and confrontation of the themes of grief and loss. Yet it dances around it, shying away from depth, opting in for evoking laughter with silly jokes or even bringing audience on stage to read dialogue. This diminishes the impact of the show – because it immediately entertains instead of deepening the experience – and interrupts the flow of the narrative.

The story feels like a fever dream, we never quite know what is fiction that the character is making up and what is the story that the unmasked actor is telling us in a theatre play – as he openly admits. Is this a story about tipping a piano on its side in a recording studio? Is this a play about a family and their loss? Why are there two siblings in the name and the story, but only one on stage? Why is it important that it’s not a singular piano smasher? Are these stories connected or one of them is made up? A series of discrepancies accompanied by the signature melody can turn into a cacophony in an instant. Yet, it’s a story about a piano! We want more piano!

The moment of the smashing of the piano (Disclaimer: No pianos were harmed in this show!) is the boss fight of this show. The emotional peak. It’s wonderfully visceral, presenting the piano as a monster of its own right, metaphorically also destroying the trauma the inheritance carries. We wish there were more of these moments in the show, where the piano is the other player on stage, the equal scene partner, the nemesis of the performer. The catharsis eventually comes, however it doesn’t feel grounded in real emotions as we were just told throughout the show repeatedly that none of it is real, that it is only in our heads. Therefore, we didn’t suspend the belief.

We understand the alienation effect the show applies, though in this case, it misses the mark and causes detachment of the audience from the story. We end up not caring about the piano because the characters don’t care enough. We don’t care it’s smashed, we have little to no emotional attachment to it. While the show remains ambitious, it is at times lacking depth and it’s stylistically rather jazzy. However Piano Smashers carries huge potential! This show could make audiences treasure what they have, realise that every trauma can be healed and see that if we don’t wish to heave things around with us in our lives, we can just smash them instead! Though it needs to first heal its own dramaturgical shortcomings.

Recommended Drink: Baby Guiness (Baileys & Kahlua shot)

Catch Piano Smashers today, May 28th, from 16:45 at Museum of Alchemists – Divadlo Apropo. Tickets are available through the Prague Fringe Online Box Office.