Writer: Hanif Kureishi
Director: Nicole Behan
London. 1985. The entrepreneur is king.
Nasser and his brother are desperately trying to assimilate while still holding on to the memories of life in 
Pakistan. Nasser (Kammy Darweish) has bought into the business boom, while his brother (Gordon Warnecke) struggles with ill health and alcoholism. Enter the new generation of British Pakistanis – Nassar’s daughter Tania (Sharan Phull) and her cousin Omar (Lucca Chadwick-Patel). To them, Lahore is just a place they’ve heard stories about, but while they’ve grown up in England, they’re saddled with the traditional values and expectations of their parents.
Neither Tania nor Omar are planning to follow the rules. Against a backdrop of family expectations that they will marry and settle down, both are becoming adults in a brash, consumerist and liberated London. When Omar gets taken on in his uncle’s business and charged with turning around the fortunes of a shabby laundrette, he enlists the help of old school friend Johnny (Sam Mitchell) and together they not only create Powders – a fancy wash and dry shop for a gentrified suburb – but an unexpected romantic bond that shakes the foundations of everyone’s beliefs.
My Beautiful Laundrette was one of the standout alternative films of the mid-80s. It kickstarted the career of Writer Hanif Kureishi who went on to write a string of books and screenplays including must-watch TV The Buddha of Suburbia, also currently enjoying a theatrical comeback. It also launched young actors Daniel Day-Lewis and Gordon Warnecke as Johnny and Omar. Nearly 40 years later Warnecke returns in this production as Papa.
Like all of Kureishi’s writing, My Beautiful Laundrette has a perfect balance of drama and humour. He’s never shied away from the difficulties of integration and assimilation, from the abuse Pakistanis in the UK have suffered. He casts a comic eye over the preoccupations of first-generation immigrants and treats teenage angst and coming out with a gentle touch. So it’s a shame that this production doesn’t deal with the issues with the same subtlety. It’s all somehow too big. A huge bulky set (designed by Grace Smart) that takes a lot of pushing around between scenes, a directorial style that results in lots of shouting and lines delivered unemotionally, gauche costumes (OK – so that is pretty 80s) and lots of tacky looking spray painted props (the spray paint is a design decision which must have a good reason behind it, but it’s one that’s hard to fathom, and it makes everything look ugly). Amongst all this, the emotion of the story gets a bit lost. Sam Mitchell (Johnny) manages to bring some of it back, creating some lovely quiet moments as Johnny and Omar fall for each other and as his character makes some life-changing decisions to believe and behave differently. It’s a challenging character swerve for an actor to make – from far-right bully to gentle lover – but Mitchell manages it well, as does Kammy Darweish as Nasser who loses his overbearing pomposity as events prove that he doesn’t have the control over everything he thought he did.
However, other performances lack the dimension that they need for the characters to be fully convincing. Gordon Warnecke’s Papa is confused and bland rather than the slightly bitter and disappointed man he should be. Sharan Phull’s Tania isn’t quite rebellious enough, and Paddy Daly’s Genghis is just too stereotypical – at times almost comically so – as what should be a terrifying National Front thug. Most of all though, Lucca Chadwick-Patel’s Omar lacks the charisma necessary to make the audience really believe the central love story.
While there’s a lot here that fails to deliver, Kureishi’s great script just about saves the day, keeping your attention, even though it’s over-long, a good 20 minutes longer than the film in fact – the film which proves that this is a story best told with much more subtlety, brevity and emotion.
Runs until 23 March 2024
The Reviews Hub Score
Lacks charm, clumsy
