Barbershop Chronicles

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Barbershop Chronicles

At the Market Theatre for the opening of Inua Ellam's  Barbershop Chronicles. I postponed releasing this because the show centers a lot around a very painful memory. The UEFA Champions League semi-final against Chelsea. A tie Chelsea won by deploying negative tactics, a low block, parking the bus at the Camp Nou and countering with a last minute Fernando Torres goal. The cast of the show are having a lot of fun with that result, a lot of these barbers around the world are Chelsea fans. I am very much a Barcelona fan. 


The play chronicles six different barbershops scattered across London and various African cities: including Lagos, Johannesburg, Harare, Kampala, and Accra. The whole story unfolds over the course of a single day, though in different times and places, giving a sweeping, episodic sense of lives, connections and conversations across the diaspora. The play covers themes of black masculinity, identity, fatherhood, absent fathers, intergenerational relationships, community, belonging, vulnerability and healing. The performers have soul and personality. They are authentic and lively, they are humorous, they have quirks. The show has a lot of energy and enthusiasm but also emotional and intimate. There's even singing and choreographed dancing - a truly spectacular show! It evokes feelings of nostalgia, it's familiar in every timezone. I loved visiting Lagos, Abongile Matyutyu is an unbelievable actor! So happy and relieved when his customer came back late to pay him for the haircut. Everyone is awesome!


The actors
Farai Chigudu
Langalibalele Mathuthu
Tumelo Namtweya-Phiri
Nhlakanipho Manqele
Luntu Masiza
Abongile Matyutyu
Thabang Chauke
Anthony Oseyemi
Mthokozisi Oseyemi
Mthokozisi Emkay Khanyile

I was patient, I waited for another match in the Champions League against Chelsea so I could have the last laugh. FC Barcelona lost 3-0.

I really dislike Chelsea.

Congratulations Sibusiso Mamba and the whole team for a great show and a deserved standing ovation.


📸: SamSays 

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