ON SCREEN: Hair and beauty salons

As soapy new drama Age Before Beauty continues (9pm, BBC1), we look at some movies that are also largely set in fictional hair and beauty salons…

Repulsion (1965) Roman Polanski’s unnerving thriller stars Catherine Deneuve as Carol, a timid young beautician working at a salon in London’s South Kensington, whose grip on reality starts to unravel with terrifying authenticity. Incredibly, the beauty salon that was used as her workplace was in operation until 2015, 50 years later.

Shampoo (1975) Set in 1968, this satirical drama centres on successful Beverly Hills hairdresser George Roundy (Warren Beatty), a promiscuous lothario whose smitten clients/conquests include Julie Christie and Goldie Hawn (above, with Beatty).

Steel Magnolias (1989) ‘Honey, time marches on… and it’s marching across your face.’ Dolly Parton is Truvy, whose Louisiana beauty parlour is the perfect setting for this star-studded quintessential tear-jerker about female friendship and solidarity. Julia Roberts, Shirley MacLaine and Olympia Dukakis also star.

Dégradé (2015) This rather cliche-ridden comedy drama follows what happens when, on a sweltering hot summer’s day in the Gaza Strip, 13 Palestinian women find themselves trapped in a claustrophobic beauty salon when rival militants start shooting at each other outside.