About
Barber Shop Chronicles Synopsis
Newsroom, political platform, local hot spot, confession box, preacher-pulpit and football stadium. For generations, African men have gathered in barber shops to discuss the world. These are places where the banter can be barbed and the truth is always telling.
Barber Shop Chronicles, which was partly inspired by verbatim recordings, is a heart-warming, hilarious and insightful play that leaps from a barber shop in Peckham to Johannesburg, Harare, Kampala, Lagos and Accra over the course of a single day.
It was first produced by the National Theatre, Fuel and Leeds Playhouse in 2017 and is here published as a Methuen Drama Student Edition with commentary and notes by Oladipo Agboluaje.
A Preview of Barber Shop Chronicles is available here.
Ideal for study on university courses or secondary school curriculum.
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9781350200142 |
| Publication date: |
9th September 2021 |
| Author: |
Inua Ellams |
| Publisher: |
Methuen Drama an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing PLC |
| Format: |
Paperback |
| Pagination: |
136 pages |
| Series: |
Methuen Student Editions |
| Suitable For: |
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| Other Genres: |
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Press Reviews
Inua Ellams Press Reviews
Isn’t this what all playwrights would wish for? To come across in their daily lives a dramatic arena. To find it both immediate and far-reaching. To put on stage lives that have not been seen there before ... [The] chronicles are set in Lagos, Johannesburg, Harare, Accra, Kampala – and south London. They include confessionals, politics, feuding, tales of men away from their homes, men cut off from fathers, men in search of companionship. Common threads – a plot about father and son, a joke about a fly in a drink, a big Barcelona-Chelsea match – weave these episodes together. But it is the stretch of the talk and material that is remarkable: anecdotal and argumentative. -- Susannah Clapp - Observer
Throbs with energy and heat. Full of sadness and great joy. - Daily Telegraph
Rich and exhilarating. A fascinating peek into the barber shop. - The Stage
Life-affirming - Independent
Author
About Inua Ellams
Inua Ellams was born in Nigeria in 1984, Inua is an internationally touring poet, playwright, performer, graphic artist & designer. He is an ambassador for the Ministry of Stories and has published four books of poetry: Candy Coated Unicorns and Converse All Stars, Thirteen Fairy Negro Tales', 'The Wire-Headed Heathen and #Afterhours. His first play The 14th Tale was awarded a Fringe First at the Edinburgh International Theatre Festival and his fourth Barber Shop Chronicles sold out its run at England's National Theatre. He is currently touring An Evening With An Immigrant and working on The Half God of Rainfall - a new play in verse. In graphic art & design, online and in print, he tries to mix the old with the new, juxtaposing texture and pigment with flat shades of colour and vector images. He lives and works from London, where he founded the Midnight Run, a nocturnal urban excursion. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
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