Barber Shop Chronicles (2017)

Barber Shop Chronicles

by

Inua Ellams

National Theatre

Barber Shop Chronicles is an exploration of migration, diaspora, masculinity, family and community set in barber shops in London, Johannesburg, Harare, Kampala, Lagos and Accra. The action takes place on the same day as the UEFA Champions League final between Chelsea and Barcelona and shows the experiences and preoccupations of a diverse group of black men aged from late teens to the late 60s.

The play begins at 6am in Lagos with Wallace banging on the door of Tokunbo’s barber shop and begging him for a haircut. Wallace has an interview at 9am. Tokunbo’s cuts his hair and Wallace runs off without paying. Then it’s 9am in London and Samuel and Emmanuel are getting ready to open the Three Kings barber shop.

For the rest of the day the action moves between the different African cities and London. We watch the all-male cast get their hair cut, discuss, football, families, racism, migration and emigration and, often obliquely, mental health. The play finishes at 9pm back in London when 18 year old Ethan comes in for a trim before his audition for the role of a ‘strong Black man’.

Ellams developed the play through a commission from the National Theatre, spending his time hanging out in barber shops in England and Africa listening to the conversations between customers. He has since described barber shops as ‘a safe sacred space’ for Black British men where they can go ‘to relax, escape racism and talk freely with no fear of being stopped, questioned or moved on by the police, which is a common experience in the world outside’.

The play was first performed at the National Theatre in 2017 directed by Bijan Shebani. The recording of the show is available on the National Theatre’s NT at Home package. In 2019, a new production by Fuel, also directed by Bijan Shebani, toured the UK.

About the writer

Inua Ellams is an award-winning poet, playwright and curator whose work has been staged around the UK. As well as Barber Shop Chronicles, he has adapted Chekhov’s Three Sisters for the National Theatre, setting it in Nigeria on the eve of the Biafran War. His other plays include Black T Shirt Collection and The Half God of Rainfall (2019). In 2025 Ellams was appointed as an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Manchester and launched his new project, Stained Metal,

Resources

National Theatre Learning Guide