OU on the BBC: Cast And Crew - My Beautiful Laundrette

Production team

Kirsty Wark returns to bring the classic 1985 film, My Beautiful Laundrette, under the Cast and Crew spotlight. After watching the film, we reunite the film's cast and crew to examine the impact and influence of the film.

My Beautiful Laundrette is a low budget British production based on a play by Hanif Kureishi which showcases superb performances from generally unknown young leads and is buoyed by an offbeat sense of humour.

To examine the film, Kirsty is joined by Stephen Frears (Director), Tim Bevan (Producer), Hanif Kureishi (Screenwriter), Oliver Stapleton (Cinematographer) and Gordon Warnecke (Actor, Omar).

Contributor Briefing

Used with permission Stephen Frears (Director)
Stephen Frears began his career as an assistant director working for the likes of Karel Reisz and Lindsay Anderson before directing his first feature, Gumshoe in 1972. He has gone on to become one of today’s most influential British film directors, finding commercial and critical success with credits including Prick Up Your Ears, Sammy and Rosie Get Laid, Dangerous Liaisons and was Oscar nominated for The Grifters. Noted for his valuable creative ties with writers including Alan Bennett, David Hare, Hanif Kureishi and Roddy Doyle, in 2000 Frears adapted Nick Hornby's best-selling High Fidelity and Jimmy McGovern's autobiographical Liam. In 2002, his film Dirty Pretty Things opened to critical acclaim. His latest project, The Queen is currently in production.

 

Used with permission Tim Bevan (Producer)
Tim Bevan is one of the most powerful London-based producers in history. No one in the British film industry has an international hit-making track record that comes close. As co-founder and co-chairman of Working Title films Bevan has to his credit over forty of the most critically and commercially acclaimed releases of the last two decades, with four Oscars and 21 Academy nominations in the Working Title oeuvre. Bevan is on the board of directors of The British Film Council.

Used with permission Hanif Kureishi (Screenwriter)
Hanif Kureishi is an internationally renowned playwright, novelist and essayist. He won the George Devine Award in 1981 for his play Outskirts and in 1982 was appointed Writer in Residence at the Royal Court. He received an Oscar nomination for My Beautiful Laundrette, and two more films followed, Sammy and Rosie Get Laid and London Kills Me (which he also directed). The Buddha of Suburbia won the Whitbread Prize for Best First Novel in 1990 and was made into a four-part drama series by the BBC in 1993. Kureshi’s short story My Son the Fanatic and his novel Intimacy have also been made into films.

Used with permission Oliver Stapleton (Cinematographer)
Oliver Stapleton came to cinematography from a career in stills photography. He began by shooting music videos and won an MTV Video Award for Best Cinematography for the A-ha video Take On Me. Following the success of My Beautiful Laundrette he has continued to work with Stephen Frears on such hits as The Grifters, The Snapper, The Van and Hi Lo Country. He has also collaborated with many other international directors such as Lasse Hallström on both The Shipping News and An Unfinished Life and Gregor Jordan on Buffalo Soldiers and Ned Kelly.

Used with permission Gordon Warnecke (Actor: Omar)
Gordon Warnecke is a television and film actor appearing in films such as London Kills and The Pleasure Principle and classic television dramas such as The Bill and Brookside.

Cast And Crew in more depth: