Leicester’s Curve has announced that it will produce Hanif Kureishi’s My Beautiful Laundrette for a tour in spring 2024 which will be supported by the National Theatre.
The production was originally staged at Curve in 2019 under the direction of Curve’s artistic director Nikolai Foster. It is based on Kureshi’s 1985 Oscar-nominated film and features original music composed by the Pet Shop Boys’ Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe.
Foster and Curve’s chief executive Chris Stafford said, “after the success of our 2019 production, we’re thrilled to be revisiting the play as part of the National Theatre's Nation Partnership programme which promotes great plays and new audiences at theatres across the country.
“Hanif surfs a multitude of strikingly relevant issues in his 1985 masterpiece—the journey of the immigrant, sexuality, English working-class society, women’s roles in society and the results of Margaret Thatcher’s policies, which we all still feel the effects of today.
“Kureishi does all of this with bucketloads of wit, compassion and his trademark uncompromising sense of mischief.”
My Beautiful Laundrette tells the story of a young British Pakistani, Omar, who transforms his uncle’s run-down laundrette into a thriving business. After being confronted by a racist gang, Omar develops a relationship with schoolfriend Johnny, a fascist skinhead. Against a backdrop of racial division, nationalism, rising inflation, recession and political turmoil, love blossoms between the two boys as they set to work renovating the south London laundrette.
Nicole Behan, co-artistic director of Paperwork Theatre in Liverpool, will direct the tour. The full cast and creative team will be announced later.
My Beautiful Laundrette will open at Curve from 17 until 24 February 2024 and will visit venues including Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch (28 February until 9 March) and The Lowry, Salford (19 until 23 March). Further dates will be announced.