My Beautiful Laundrette

Directed by Stephen Frears
Starring Daniel Day Lewis, Roshan Seth, Saeed Jaffrey.

This screening will be introduced by guest speaker Dr. Andrew Moor.

Dr. Andrew Moor has taught and written extensively on British cinema and LGBTQ+ cinema. He is a Visiting Research Fellow at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Restored and marking its 40th anniversary, this delightfully transgressive story of two lovers attempting to open a glamorous laundromat amid the turbulence of life in Thatcher’s Britain was scripted by the then little-known writer Hanif Kureishi and stars the little-known actor Daniel Day-Lewis.

Who would have thought that this small budget film made for Channel 4 from a script by a then unknown writer about a young Pakistani Londoner (Gordon Warnecke), his ambitions for his uncle’s laundrette and his developing relationship with a skinhead (Daniel Day-Lewis in a breakthrough role) would become one of the most successful and iconic films of the 80s?

My Beautiful Laundrette established the career of writer Hanif Kureishi, launched the cinema star that is Daniel Day-Lewis and catapulted director Stephen Frears into the cinema fast lane. This culture-clash controversial comedy captured the tensions of multiculturalism and Thatcherism whilst its central gay inter racial relationship was both praised and criticised.

The film is the very definition of intersectionality! Today, the issues it grapples with still feels relevant, and its deliberately awkward politics of new money, entrepreneurial possibility and neoliberalism, coupled with the presence of disenfranchised white working class, and the foregrounding of a gay relationship make the film resonate loudly 40 years on.

A 2K restoration supervised by director of photography Oliver Stapleton c/o Criterion, Park Circus and Channel 4

Cinema Rediscovered On Tour is a Watershed project in collaboration with principal sponsors Park Circus and StudioCanal. With Support from BFI Audience Projects Fund awarding National Lottery funding.