Five Pianos by Niall Ashdown, The Brockley Jack Studio Theatre, 410 Brockley Road, London SE4 | until 07 February 2026 ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Review by William Russell

Five Pianos

by Niall Ashdown

The Brockley Jack Studio Theatre, 410 Brockley Road, London SE4 | until 07 February 2026

⭐⭐⭐⭐ Review by William Russell

“A man, a piano and a life.”

Niall Ashdown is what you could call a man of parts and this entertaining one man show with songs which he has composed is about life and death and taking chances – maybe you will fly if you try. Maybe not. But you will have tried. It would have helped had he talked just a little louder – his style is conversational but possibly excessively so. As for his songs, well maybe you will never sing them in the shower or in the bath, but they certainly illustrate his story of his life perfectly. He sat his first piano exam aged nine and vowed never to play the piano again – a vow he did not keep. The piano has played a part in his life ever since – as he tells us about a life well lived, his love affairs, his relationship with his father and about death. It is eighty or so minutes well spent – and he even adds an encore to deliver a song he had omitted from this version of what I suppose is a play with music. Five Pianos is his first solo project since The Man Who Would be Sting and Hungarian Bird Festival both of which became plays for BBC Radio Four. It was a short run at the Jack but should he appear with it in a theatre near you not to be missed. It is unlike anything you will have seen before.