‘Hair. It’s everything.” So said Fleabag in the most glorious (and only?) monologue delivered about hair on British television. And, yes, for the small and splenetic sector of readers who find any mention of that show intolerable, you’re right. I have just opened another Guardian article with a Fleabag reference. But Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s voluminous speech springs to mind as I watch the high-octane, gravity-defying (sorry, all this high-stress styling talk is catching) opening of The Big Blow Out (E4, All 4). Could it do for this country’s endless bad hair days and brutally shorn national mood what The Great British Bake Off did for soggy bottoms? Admittedly, it’s a lot to pin on a show about hairdressing. Then again, it sort of worked with a bunch of bakers fighting over the height of their genoise. Height, by the way, is also uppermost in The Big Blow Out. A good sign.
“Whether it’s big and bouncy or short-hair-don’t-care, we all use hair to express ourselves,” begins presenter AJ Odudu, as her hair, which is as fabulous as her Lancashire burr, switches from massive to sleek, from braided to Marilyn Monroe glam. Personally, I haven’t brushed my hair since Bake Off turned 10, but never mind. Put aside your worries for an hour. Pop a barber’s cape on. Sit down and tell me what you’ve got planned for the weekend.
