Barber Shop Chronicles

Barber Shop Chronicles is a generously funny, heart-warming and insightful new play set in five African cities, Johannesburg, Harare, Kampala, Lagos, Accra, and in London.
Inspired in part by the story of a Leeds barber, the play invites the audience into a unique environment where the banter may be barbed, but the truth always telling. The barbers of these tales are sages, role models and father figures who keep the men together and the stories alive.

Born in Nigeria, Inua Ellams is a cross-art-form practitioner, a poet, playwright, performer, graphic artist, designer and founder of the Midnight Run - a nocturnal urban excursion. He is a Complete Works poet alumni and a designer at White Space Creative Agency. Inua Ellams' previous plays at the National include The 14th Tale (Fringe First award) and Black T-Shirt Collection. Other plays include The Riddler at Theatre503; Knight Watch at Greenwich + Docklands Festival; Mostly Like Blue for Islington Community Theatre; Cape at the Unicorn; The Long Song Goodbye at Battersea Arts Centre; Fastcuts and Snapshot at West Yorkshire Playhouse; Marsh Orchids & Concrete for China Plate; Reset Everything and An Evening with an Immigrant at the Soho; and Turned at Trafalgar Studios. Radio plays include The Ballad of Abdul Ha z and Wild Blood. He has published three pamphlets of poetry 'Candy Coated Unicorns and Converse All Stars', 'Thirteen Fairy Negro Tales' and 'The Wire-Headed Heathen'. His poetry is published by Flipped Eye, Akashic, Nine Arches, and several plays by Oberon Books. His new book #Afterhours is published by Nine Arches Press. inuaellams.com