Ernst Lubitsch's 1919 silent comedy masterpiece is given a carnivalesque jazz spin in a thrilling live accompaniment by the 14 musicians of cult Flemish big band Flat Earth Society. Premiered at Flanders International Film Festival, the performance has already played some of Europe's top festivals, including Lille, Berlin Jazzfest and Brighton Festival. The hour-long, German production - about an American oyster tycoon named Quaker and his plans to marry his daughter to a bona fide prince - is regarded as an important turning point in Lubitsch's career, where he departed from his previous slapstick style in favour of something closer of social satire. The new score, which has also been recorded for a DVD, drives the action - which includes a legendary dance sequence - along at a furious, ceaselessly entertaining pace. After the interval Flat Earth Society will play a short jazz set.

'Fifteen-piece Belgian big band Flat Earth Society is the sonic equivalent of a freak show - weird, wonderful and like nothing you've come across before.' All About Jazz

'Cheerfully anarchic, the music is full of bizarre and shocking juxtapositions. Poetic, though in a surreal way, risky and energising, the chasm between the hectic drilled brilliance of the big band moments and the sudden silences and strange 'spacey' sounds that intersperse them is vast, [but] the presence of big personalities with virtuoso improvising skills binds the whole experience together.' The Daily Telegraph

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