Sway, swing, hop or pirouette into 1920s Paris.
A cultural revolution. A literary hotbed. A musical melting pot. Immerse yourself in les années folles as the BBC Concert Orchestra carve a slice off the artistic and literary worlds that leaked out of every pore of post-war Paris.
Explore the characters who gave the city its cultural edge. Discover the ballet music that brought it all together.
Dadaist Satie teamed up with cubist Picasso for the ballet réaliste Parade. Brazilian-inspired music by Milhaud coupled with a surrealist scenario made up Le boeuf sur le toit. The equally surreal ballet Les mariés de la tour Eiffel with its bizarre story by cultural catalyst Jean Cocteau and music by five leading French composers including Poulenc and Milhaud. And the ultimate American in Paris, Cole Porter, with his one and only piece of ‘serious’ music – the hit ballet Within the Quota.
The musical movement was mirrored by a literary explosion. Writers flocked to soak up the city’s vitality and decadence. F. Scott Fitzgerald. Ernest Hemingway. Gertrude Stein. The Lost Generation. The disillusionment and the debauchery.
With scripted scenario and original poetry by Luke Kennard, actors Alistair McGowan and Kevin Eldon are your historical guides as they bring to life Paris’s most colourful years in “scenes from a Parisian café”.
If you had a chance to travel back to Paris in the 1920s, would you?
