Review: Barber Shop Chronicles

In London, a son defends the reputation of his jailed father; in Johannesburg, a man rails against Mandela’s peace, which has kept blacks poor and allowed whites to get off scot-free, while in Kampala, Uganda, the talk is of persecuting gays and how it brings about boycotts of exports abroad. Meanwhile, back in London, Nigerian Muslim Muhammed discusses the pros and cons of dating white and black women, possibly at the same time.

In this delightfully rambling play by the Nigerian poet and dramatist Inua Ellams these are just some of the subjects that occupy the minds and mouths of those who frequent the African equivalent of the French salon or the British pub — the barber shop.

Take each of these narrative strands and it’s hard to imagine any of them amounting to much. But Bijan Sheibani is a director whose mastery of human traffic resulted in an almost balletic revival of Arnold Wesker’s The Kitchen and also an unforgettable English version of Polish playwright Tadeusz Slobodzianek’s Holocaust play, Our Class. This time, Sheibani creates something that seems rooted in chaos but is in fact hugely disciplined and drilled.

For just as this production’s cast of 12 men seems settled in pre-show revelry that involves dancing with random members of the audience to tunes played by a hip-hop DJ, the ensemble gather like iron filings to a magnet to watch on TV an unfolding story that links all this play’s African barbershops — and one in Peckham — the Champions’ League final between Barcelona and Chelsea.