Stage-to-screen review: My Beautiful Laundrette

Leicester's Curve Theatre continues to dip into its archive recordings to provide online content and fundraise during lockdown; latest is last year's My Beautiful Laundrette, adapted by Hanif Kureishi from his own screenplay. It's something of a rollercoaster ride during the early eighties for an extended Pakistani-British family, rising above the general wave of unemployment by building a small business empire (albeit one that isn't quite as legal and respectable as it initially appears) while at the same time being regularly reminded that they're still viewed by many as an underclass. It's seen through the eyes of Omar (Omar Malik) and his complicated relationship with old schoold friend Johnny (Jonny Fines, who seems pretty spot-on casting for a play about laundry, considering he's always struck me as looking literally very clean, but metaphorically a bit dirty.)

Omar's mother killed herself the previous year, and his father (Gordon Warnecke) has been drinking himself to death ever since, so Omar's sent to get a job with his uncle Nasser (Kammy Darweish,) who saddles him with looking after the dilapidated laundrette that's the white elephant of his business interests.

When a group of skinheads attack the family, Omar defuses the situation by recognising Johnny among them and reiginiting their friendship, to the extent that he hires him to help clean up and relaunch the laundrette, which gets renamed "Powders" as a pun on washing powder and the drugs they sold to raise the money for refurbishment. It's also obvious that their relationship has always had an edge to it that barely qualifies as unspoken, and their flirtatious, innuendo-laden private conversations inevitably turn into a physical relationship.

My Beautiful Laundrette is full of dark and disturbing elements, not just in the ever-present threat of Johnny's racist sidekick Genghis (Paddy Daly) and his calls for an all-white England and return of fascism, but also within Omar's family: Nasser is full of violent mood swings and has been more or less openly having an affair with Rachel (Cathy Tyson) for years; his business affairs are overshadowed by the hold his sinister associate Salim (Hareet Deol) has over him; and his daughter Tania (Nicole Jebeli) doesn't want to be married off to her first cousin, but still thinks Omar is a better option than any other arranged marriage her parents might have in mind.

So the romance between Omar and Johnny is very much the light relief and beacon of hope among all this, which is perhaps why the rather toxic side to the relationship feels oddly under-explored - even in childhood their relationship sounds like it alternated between friendship and bullying, and though I can buy that Johnny is a bit of a wishy-washy character who just got swept along with his friends' radicalisation, the fact that he doesn't cut off Genghis and Moose (Balvinder Sopal) after reconnecting with Omar is harder to dismiss.

My Beautiful Laundrette is matter-of-fact and non-judgmental in its presentation of both the good and the bad, and at times it feels a bit like Nikolai Foster's production lacks dynamism as a result; but it's worth remembering that this recording is of the public dress rehearsal, so essentially the first public performance of any kind, and most productions take a while to find their rhythm in front of an audience. In any case there's a grungy, flexible set from Grace Smart, and an authentically queer eighties sound thanks to Pet Shop Boys being brought in as composers, and while the passage of time means the story offers more questions than answers now there's still much to enjoy.

My Beautiful Laundrette by Hanif Kureishi is available on the Curve Theatre's website.

Running time: 2 hours 5 minutes.

Photo credit: Ellie Kurttz.