⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Press tickets

Adapted from Hanif Kureishi’s 80’s movie, this production is a complex play that centres around racism, social class, generational differences, sexual identity, and immigration all taking place in Thatcher Britain.  Nikolai Foster’s 2019 Curve production of  My Beautiful Laundrette has been developed further by director Nicole Behan and is one that’s announcement was well-received.

My Beautiful Laundrette highlights the issues of the immigrant society. The feeling of not quite belonging. The feeling of wanting to escape, wanting freedom and all the heartbreak and tensions that brings. Whether, it’s wanting to escape from a controlling father, escape from London, or escape from being who you were. 

Nasser (Kammy Darweish) and Papa (Gordon Warnecke) demonstrate a cultural conflict well both reprising their roles with strong performances. With Nasser toasting and celebrating the Thatcher lifestyle leaving behind Eastern traditions for money and success and a white mistress, whilst Papa remains true to his roots who believes education is the root of combating racism and longs to be back in Pakistan away from the conservatives. 

Meanwhile, there are plenty of other issues unfolding. Whether it’s Omar (Lucca Chadwick-Patel) and Johnny (Sam Mitchell) pining for one another in a society that would reject it upon many levels. Or Tania (Sharan Phull) desperate for freedom from the clutches of women’s oppression.

Grace Smart’s set design is representative of a broken and detached South London. It’s crumbling concrete, it’s destruction, disaster and it’s tarnished with spray paint throughout. It’s a scene of hopelessness juxtaposed with neon lights hoping for something more. There are levels, with white supremacist gangs overlooking, placing themselves on a higher level than those they look down upon. It felt representative that the white supremacists saw themselves as better than the Pakistanis and gave the impression that they should always be watching their backs, especially as Genghis was incredibly adamant to never work for ‘them’. This, I feel, helped tie in the conflict and cement the storyline and tensions between the main action and dialogue.

I thoroughly enjoyed watching Sam Mitchell as Johnny and felt he was a standout performance for me, alongside Warnecke and Emma Bown, who played Rachel and Moose. I was particularly impressed with Bown for how she incredibly switched between two polar opposite characters – yet despite being opposites had similar struggles. Hareet Deol as Salim gave a strong performance as a reactive character that had you thinking about the depth that he must’ve had that isn’t explored.

It was beautiful to see Gordon Warnecke reprising the role of Papa again after playing Omar in the original movie 40 years ago. I really was drawn to the powerful yet hopeless character that he played.

There is a lot of onstage fighting, though sometimes it felt like it lacked something. Perhaps lacking sound impact or perhaps the angle I was sitting. There were some scenes where the fighting was particularly poignant and strong, especially those with Paddy Daly as Genghis who was particularly convincing and thuggish.

If this is the sort of play for you, paired with backing sounds from The Pet Shop boys, then My Beautiful Laundrette is open for business until 24 Feb.