BBC Literary Archive

Front Row | Inua Ellams On Barber Shop Chronicles

Barber Shop Chronicles | BBC Radio 4 | 2017 | 9'15''

Inua Ellams on his play Barber Shop Chronicles. Reviews of TV drama Godless and tennis film Battle of the Sexes. Plus an ex...

Front Row | Inua Ellams

Barber Shop Chronicles | BBC Radio 4 | 2020 | 27'54''

The National Theatre is streaming, free, its hit production of Barber Shop Chronicles. Tom Sutcliffe talks to author Inua Ellams about his career and...

The Verb | Inua Ellams and Barber Shop Chronicles

The Spalding Suite | BBC Radio 3 | 2015 | 10'50''

Inua Ellams talks to Ian McMillan about his life and work. His play 'Barber Shop Chronicles' is a set text on OCR's A Level...

This Cultural Life | Inua Ellams

Three Sisters | BBC Radio 4 | 2022 | 41'54''

Nigerian-born poet and playwright Inua Ellams discusses the cultural turning points of his life with John Wilson.

The Essay | Five Kinds of Beethoven: Inua Ellams

Three Sisters | BBC Radio 3 | 2020 | 14'12''

Inua Ellams, poet and playwright, shares what Beethoven means to him.

Front Row | Inua Ellams on Three Sisters

Three Sisters | BBC Radio 4 | 2019 | 8'48''

Inua Ellams, writer of the hit play Barber Shop Chronicles, has transposed Chekhov's Three Sisters to 1960s Nigeria, on the brink of...

A Good Read | Inua Ellams and Ted Hodgkinson

Three Sisters | BBC Radio 4 | 2025 | 27'45''

Inua Ellams is a playwright, poet and curator. His work includes Barber Shop Chronicles, The Half-God of Rainfall, and an updati...

Ace | The cast of Inua Ellams’ Barber Shop Chronicles (1)

Barber Shop Chronicles | BBC Radio 1xtra | 2017 | 5'53''

Hammed Animashaun and Fiasyo Akinade talk to Ace about the Inua Ellams' play Barber Shop Chronicles, which is...

Ace | The cast of Inua Ellams’ Barber Shop Chronicles (2)

Barber Shop Chronicles | BBC Radio 1xtra | 2017 | 4'57''

Hammed Animashaun and Fiasyo Akinade talk to Ace about the Inua Ellams' play Barber Shop Chronicles, which is...

Power Lines | Place

Water Seeds Not Stones | BBC Radio 4 | 2017 | 27'47''

Sabrina Mahfouz and Inua Ellams explore the escalating popularity of spoken word poetry. Poet playwright Inua Ellams looks at how location affects poetry...

Nsukka Is Burning

BBC Radio 4 | 2020 | 27'36''

Playwright Inua Ellams explores how writers from Nsukka, a university town in southeastern Nigeria, have continued to bloom in spite of erasure and exile.