Counter Culture

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 Some Fringe shows try to recreate an era with props and posture. Paris in a Jazz Age does it with mood. From the moment Airlie Scott steps into the light as Eloise DeFleur, you feel the room tilt gently toward 1920s Paris and on — that heady mix of smoke, swing, and possibility. It’s not a history lecture. It’s a feeling. And the show gets that feeling right.

Airlie has an easy command of the space. She doesn’t force the character; she lets Eloise arrive naturally, as if she’s been living in the wings for decades and has finally decided to wander out and talk. There’s a warmth to her storytelling, a softness in the way she lets memories unfold. Nothing rushed. Nothing over‑played. Just a woman looking back at the city that shaped her.

The music is where the show really breathes. The Hot Jazz Vagabonds are the real thing — proper hot‑club swing, the kind of nimble, conversational playing that makes you sit up a little straighter. Alan Gibson’s bass keeps everything steady; David Ahmed and Andy Ruiz Palma’s guitars dance around each other with that unmistakable Django shimmer; Pete Watson’s accordion folds the whole sound in Parisian colour. It’s a band that knows exactly what it’s doing.

One of the highlights for me was “Blue Skies”, a Josephine Baker song from 1937. It’s one of my favourite vocal jazz numbers anyway, but Airlie gives it a lovely lift — bright, hopeful, almost conspiratorial. You can hear the optimism of early‑20s Paris in the way she phrases it, that sense of a city opening its arms to anyone bold enough to step inside.

The show also touches on songs that speak directly to the city itself — pieces like “I Love Paris”, which fits the tone perfectly. It’s one of those numbers that carries the whole sweep of the place in a few bars: the romance, the melancholy, the sense that the city is always slightly larger than your own life. Hearing it in this context feels right. It’s not just a standard; it’s a love letter folded into the set.

The rest of the repertoire moves through the music that defined the era: gypsy jazz standards, early swing, touches of French chanson, and those American Songbook classics that drifted across the Atlantic and settled into the clubs. Airlie has spoken about building the show around songs she loves from those traditions, and you can feel that affection. Nothing feels like filler. Every number earns its place.

What gives the show its shape is the memoir framing — Eloise arriving in Paris in 1920, finding her voice, losing people she loved, watching the city change under Occupation, and carrying on because that’s what Paris demanded. It’s lightly handled, never heavy, but it gives the music emotional weight. A song isn’t just a song; it’s a chapter.

There’s a moment, late in the show, where Airlie shifts from glamour to something quieter. It’s subtle, but it lands. You realise you’ve been listening not just to a performer but to a woman who has lived through joy and uncertainty and still finds reasons to sing. That’s the heart of the piece.

By the end, you feel you’ve spent an hour in Paris — not the postcard version, but the one built from late‑night cafés, warm laughter, and songs that stay with you. It’s a lovely thing to walk out of Surgeons’ Hall with.

Reviewed by Pat Harrington

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Read our interview with Airlie  Scott here

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