Audition: Hair

David Bowie took part in auditions for the hippie musical Hair on 20 February 1969.

Bowie had unsuccessfully auditioned for the musical on 17 and 23 June 1968.

In the evening he and manager Kenneth Pitt watched the show at London’s Shaftesbury Theatre.

On the 20th David was recalled by the producers of Hair and was auditioned. Neither of us had seen the play so that night we both went to the Shaftesbury Theatre, where it was being staged. David didn’t like it very much and therefore wasn’t fretful when, after yet another recall on the 28th, he was deemed unsuitable to join the cast. He and I went to the theatre again on March 3, this time to the Criterion to see Roy Dotrice in his one-man tour de force Brief Lives, taken from the diaries of John Aubrey, the 17th-century author. This, David enjoyed immensely and as we rose from our seats at the end of the performance he said ‘Now that’s what I call theatre.’