Sweet, funny and endlessly touching, re-released 1994 short film Three Salons at the Seaside is a tragicomic joy about pensioner-packed salons – and a hypnotic dispatch from a lost age
On Monday 29 August 1994, sandwiched between a repeat of the 70s sitcom Happy Ever After and a showing of the 1988 movie version of Dangerous Liaisons, BBC Two broadcast one of the finest documentaries ever made. And now, thanks to a sudden wave of renewed interest, Three Salons at the Seaside has returned to iPlayer.
Directed by Philippa Lowthorpe, who most recently helmed a couple of episodes of the new Willow series on Disney+, Three Salons at the Seaside is a beautiful, delicate 40-minute film about (as you’d expect) three hairdressing salons in Blackpool, all of which appear to cater exclusively to women aged 70 or above. It feels like a dispatch from a lost age. Customers, no matter how loyal, are always addressed formally. Fishmongers pop in from time to time to take orders. All the phone numbers have five digits. Perms, in all three of the salons, appear to be violently non-negotiable.
