Welcome to The Big Smoke Variety Show!

This week, we step into the fascinating world of juggling — from ancient Egypt and Covent Garden street performance to opera houses, ballet studios, flying apples and the strange beauty of objects in motion.

Kevin is joined by Sean Gandini, co-founder of the internationally renowned Gandini Juggling ensemble. Raised in Havana, Cuba, Sean was first drawn to magic and mathematics before discovering juggling as a teenager, sparking a lifelong fascination with rhythm, geometry and the possibilities of throwing and catching.

Together, Kevin and Sean explore what juggling actually is. Is it simply “more balls than hands”? Is it choreography? Is it a theatre warm-up, a dance form, a circus skill, or something stranger depending on where and how it appears?

Sean reflects on his early years performing magic and juggling in Covent Garden, his memories of sharing that street-performance world with figures including Eddie Izzard, and the moment his future wife and creative partner, Kati Ylä-Hokkala, picked up his clubs and revealed a completely different world of movement and possibility.

The conversation also traces the creation of Gandini Juggling, exploring how Sean and Kati began pushing juggling beyond its traditional boundaries — from dance, theatre, opera, magic and music to ancient Egyptian images, vaudeville, circus traditions, and the tantalising possibility that juggling’s place in the cultural hierarchy might have been very different if history had taken another turn.

Kevin and Sean also explore Gandini Juggling’s work on Philip Glass’s opera Akhnaten, where juggling becomes ritual, repetition, visual music and, at times, a powerful symbol of failure, death and meaning.

We’re also trying something new, with episodes now coming to you every week. Join us next Thursday for more adventurous audio, including another instalment from the historical London Loo Tours and the return of apprentice magicians The Strange Brothers.

So whether you’re watching three balls in the air, wondering where juggling ends and dance begins, or contemplating the strange philosophy of a dropped object, remember: sometimes the simplest actions — throwing, catching, dropping, trying again — can reveal something wonderfully human, just as we keep discovering here in The Big Smoke.

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Links

🤹 Gandini Juggling

📸 Gandini Juggling Instagram

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Chapters

(00:00) Intro & Show Menu

(01:35) Sean Gandini Interview

(56:39) Outro

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Credits

Hosted & Executive Produced by Kevin Bennett

Produced & Edited by Alex Graham

Original Music by Giles Terera

Music arranged and played by Joseph Atkins