Four theatres have announced the cast for a new stage version of Hanif Kureishi’s 1985 Oscar-nominated film My Beautiful Laundrette.
Leicester’s Curve, the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry, Everyman Theatre Cheltenham and Leeds Playhouse will present the drama which will feature Omar Malik as quick-witted Omar, a young British Pakistani who transforms his uncle’s run-down laundrette into a thriving business. He played Tariq in Ayub Khan Din’s East is East at Nottingham Playhouse in 2017.
Jonny Fines who played US Navy Officer Cadet Zack Mayo in An Officer and a Gentleman – the Musical at Curve in 2018 and Kenickie in Grease the Musical, also at Curve, in 2017 will play rebellious punk Johnny.
Curve associate artist Hareet Deol, who made his professional debut at the theatre as Suf in Dougal Irvine’s 2018 adaptation of Riaz Khan’s Memoirs of an Asian Football Casual, will play drug-dealer Salim.
Golden Globe-nominated Cathy Tyson will play Rachel and Cherry. She performed at Curve as Lady Bracknell in Oscar Wilde‘s The Importance of Being Earnest in 2016 and took the role of Detective Inspector Siobhan Clarke in Rona Munro’s adaptation of Ian Rankin’s Rebus: Long Shadows on its UK tour in 2018.
Gordon Warnecke joins the cast as Papa, Omar’s alcoholic but wise father.
Completing the cast are Paddy Daly as Genghis and Dick O’Donnell, Kammy Darweish as Nasser, Nicole Jebeli as Tania, and Balvinder Sopal as Bilquis and Moose.
My Beautiful Laundrette will open at Curve from 20 September until 5 October. It then tours to Everyman Theatre Cheltenham from 8 until 12 October, Leeds Playhouse from 15 until 26 October, Belgrade Theatre, Coventry from 29 October until 2 November and Birmingham REP from 5 until 9 November.