Theatre review: Jaja's African Hair Braiding

Like a female version of Inua Ellams' Barber Shop Chronicles, Jocelyn Bioh's 2024 play Jaja's African Hair Braiding spans a working day in the titular Harlem salon where four African immigrant women compete for customers, tell stories and bicker: Miriam (Jadesola Odunjo) is the quiet one on the surface, cheerfully getting lumbered with a complicated job that'll take her all day, but able to open up and show a nuanced inner life when she connects with someone. Aminata (babirye bukilwa) is outwardly confident but her determination not to let her deadbeat husband James push her around is easily dented. Ndidi (Bola Akeju) is temporarily occupying a chair as the salon where she usually works, having clawed her way up to a full-time position, burned down. And Bea (Dolapo Oni) would be the group's mother figure, if she hadn't managed to piss all of them off at some point or other.

The titular owner herself only briefly appears, because today is Jaja's (Zainab Jah) wedding day, in what is a barely-disguised Green Card marriage; but her daughter Marie (Sewa Zamba) has been working in the shop while trying to find a way to tell her mother she wants to be a writer rather than the hoped-for doctor.

Karene Peter, Renee Bailey and Dani Moseley play all the customers over the course of the day, including a demanding nightmare who insists on telling Aminata how to do her job before promptly falling asleep in the chair, and a wannabe boss-bitch businesswoman whose important calls are forgotten when she gets sucked into the soap opera of the braiders' arguments. And Demmy Ladipo plays all the men, including the incredibly dodgy James and various hawkers trying to sell socks and jewelry to the customers.

So it's a sitcom, and a very funny one at times, but Monique Touko's production is keenly aware that sitcom is actually a very effective genre for introducing much darker themes, because it's so reliant on quickly making you know and like a variety of characters. The story is set in 2019, during Trump's first presidency, and there's throwaway references to ICE and the kind of crackdown that's become even more familiar during the second one. It reminds us that the characters whose company we're enjoying are in some cases on quite shaky legal ground, and sets up a big rug-pull near the end.

It's also a bright, energetic and very loud evening with some great visuals - I particularly liked Jaja's wedding dress, courtesy of costume designer Jessica Cabassa, which has the kind of glamour tipping over into just the right amount of camp that any self-respecting wedding dress should have. It's got a serious core, but Jaja's African Hair Braiding never loses track of the lightness of touch and genuine heart that are its big attraction.

Jaja's African Hair Braiding by Jocelyn Bioh is booking until the 25th of April at the Lyric Hammersmith.

Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes straight through.

Photo credit: Manuel Harlan.