Curve, Leicester
Adapted from Hanif Kureishi’s 1985 film, this production retains its 80s ethos while speaking to today’s world with the racial and gender politics heightened
Making plays out of films is a tricky business but Hanif Kureishi has successfully adapted his landmark 1985 movie for the stage with the aid of linking music from Tennant/Lowe of the Pet Shop Boys. The production still pins down the pervasive impact of entrepreneurial Thatcherite values while charting the growth of a gay relationship. But what is fascinating is how deftly Kureishi has heightened the story’s racial and gender politics.
We see a young British Pakistani man, Omar, turning a run-down laundrette into a thriving business aided by his chum, Johnny, on whom he dotes. But the muddled fascism of Johnny’s hangers-on is much clearer than in the movie, with one of them spouting toxic anti-immigrant rhetoric and another brandishing a banner proclaiming: “British jobs for British workers.” Tania, the cousin to whom Omar is briefly engaged, also launches a fierce attack on the passivity of her mother’s generation and a culture in which marriages are seen as business mergers. Significantly, her bid for freedom is now supported by her father’s ex-mistress, Rachel, who in this version is no longer a white trophy girlfriend but a victimised woman of colour.
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