Barbershop is an American television sitcom based upon the Mark Brown-created characters from the films Barbershop (2002) and Barbershop 2: Back in Business (2004), developed for television by screenwriter John Ridley and starring Omar Gooding as Calvin Palmer, Jr., the proprietor of an African-American barbershop on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois.
The single-camera, half-hour comedy series features a cast including Omar Gooding in the lead role. Joining Gooding is an ensemble cast including Gbenga Akinnagbe, Anna Brown, John Wesley Chatham, Leslie Elliard, Barry Shabaka Henley, Toni Trucks and Dan White.
The series begins where the MGM movie franchise left off, with most of the same endearing characters and a few new memorable ones added to the shop, set in a gradually gentrifying Chicago neighbourhood.
The cast of characters is headed by Calvin (Gooding), the soul of this close-knit community who runs the barbershop he inherited from his father which serves as the local hangout. There, with every snip of the scissors, hilarious conversations and heated discussions about the trials and tribulations of everyday life on Chicago's South Side take place.
But unlike the original films, the series goes further as it delves humorously into issues of all kinds relating to these characters - no subject is off-limits in the shop.
The lively banter and funny wisecracks don't stop in the shop either as the series further explores the personal lives of this multi-ethnic group of haircutters.
Barbershop was executive-produced by prolific writer and showrunner, John Ridley along with the feature films producing team of Robert Teitel, George Tillman Jr. and executive producer and star of the original films, Ice Cube.