My Beautiful Laundrette stage show to return to Curve Leicester and tour

The stage adaptation of My Beautiful Laundrette will return to Curve, Leicester next year ahead of a UK tour as part of the Theatre Nation Partnerships initiative.

The Pet Shop Boys – Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe – composed music for the show, which is adapted for the stage by Hanif Kureishi, based on his screenplay.

Set in London during the Thatcher years, the piece follows young British Pakistani Omar who transforms his uncle’s London laundrette into a thriving business while dealing with fascist gangs in the area.

It will be directed by Nicole Behan (Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons) and the original production is by Curve’s artistic director Nikolai Foster. The full cast and creative team is to be announced.

My Beautiful Laundrette will open at Curve, Leicester on 17 February, running to 24 February before heading to Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch from 28 February to 9 March and The Lowry in Salford from 19 to 23 March.

Curve’s chief executive Chris Stafford and Foster said: “We are thrilled to be presenting Hanif Kureshi’s astonishing adaptation of his Oscar-nominated film My Beautiful Laundrette. After the success of our 2019 production, we are thrilled to be revisiting the play as part of the National Theatres’ 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 – from the journey of the immigrant, sexuality, English working-class society, women’s roles in society and the results of 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.”

Kate Varah, executive director of the National Theatre added: “Theatre Nation Partnerships is our national network with local impacts, bringing people together and offering opportunities for work to be shared and celebrated. We’re delighted that audiences from Barnstaple to Wakefield will get to enjoy this wonderful revival of My Beautiful Launderette.

“This production will begin with a week of research and development at the NT Studio via our Generate programme, which aims to develop work that’s destined for stages outside the capital. We’re delighted to be working with Curve at the helm to share this story with audiences across the country.”