Hair

We went to Cheltenham today.  It has been raining all day so was a bit damp.  I was going to the Everyman Theatre to see their production of Hair (Ann didn't want to see it, she went shopping).  It is fifty one years since the musical originally opened at the Shaftesbury Theatre, 27th September 1968, have been playing on Broadway previously.  The date is significant as it is the day following the abolishment of theatre censorship which banned nudity and profanity on stage. My friend Barry and I went to this production, prices in West End theatres were expensive, as now, we could only afford a couple of seats up in the gods.  The music was good but we couldn't see much detail on the stage. Today I sat in the front row of the circle and thoroughly enjoyed the energy, music and singing on the stage.

It was a full house, the average age range being 65-70 I would have thought, interestingly considering the name of the musical, most of the men in the audience were, like me, follically challenged.

The extra was taken many, many years ago by Barry in my room.  This was presumably my ‘cool’ look, more mod than hippy, that came later!  The Hair album shown is not the one in the collage, that particular one I swapped for two Rolling Stones albums, the first two they issued.  Years later I regretted not having the album so bought a copy of the 1968 recording on eBay. The program came with the album, it's for the 1970 production at Leeds Grand Theatre.

After Note: the pair in the poster outside the theatre look pretty cheesy, the actual performers where much more normal (in a 1960s hippy way).