Picture a small northern market town in the 1970s, where the hum of hairdryers mixes with the low murmur of gossip, and every snip of the scissors seems to loosen tongues as much as it trims ends. Into this world steps Lily Petal, played by Sally Phillips with the sort of grounded charm that makes you lean in. The Hairdresser Mysteries premiered today on BBC One and iPlayer, and from the opening frames of its first episode it feels like slipping into a comfortable armchair rather than enduring another slick procedural.
Created by Jim Cartwright, who also leads the writing team alongside Mark Catley and David Semple, the six-part drama follows Phillips's character as she trades the bustle of a city salon for a shop of her own in Blossom Vale. There, her sharp intuition and the steady flow of local chatter turn her into an unlikely investigator. The opener, Storm in a Teacup, wastes little time: a suspicious death and the theft of a valuable antique pull Lily into the heart of the community she has just joined.
What strikes you immediately is how deliberately the show anchors itself in observable human behaviour. No lectures, no grand metaphors for society, just people acting like people. Secrets surface in the salon mirror, motives reveal themselves through small-town loyalties and old grudges, and justice arrives not through forensic miracles but through careful listening. In an era when many crime dramas chase ever more baroque twists or ideological framing, this one trusts the quieter satisfactions of character and place.
The supporting cast deepens that texture. Charlotte Jordan appears as Clary Coombs, Sunetra Sarker as Wincey Evans, Ben Castle-Gibb as the local PC Adam Watson, while Guy Henry, Clive Rowe and Wendi Peters round out the ensemble with performances that feel lived-in rather than announced. The series was shot last autumn in the West Midlands, taking in Alcester, Stratford-upon-Avon, Wellesbourne and parts of Worcestershire. Those locations lend an authentic, sun-dappled warmth to the 1970s aesthetic that stops the whole thing feeling like pastiche.
Directors Paul Gibson, Jermain Julien and Tracey Larcombe keep the pace measured without ever letting it sag. Scenes in the salon crackle with the easy rhythm of real conversation; the wider town scenes open out just enough to remind you that every haircut carries echoes beyond the chair. Phillips herself seems to relish the role, her Lily equal parts shrewd and warm, the sort of woman you would trust with both your secrets and your roots.
