Listening to Hanif Kureishi on Bella Freud’s brilliant podcast ‘Fashion Neurosis’, I was reminded of how much I have enjoyed his writing and, how, over the years, I have watched almost all the films that that writing has inspired – ‘Intimacy’, ‘The Mother’ etc.
But, my love affair started with ‘My Beautiful Laundrette.’
It was originally commissioned in 1985 as a television drama by Channel 4, back in the days when the channel really did fulfil its stated aim of providing challenging and independent content. It was groundbreaking – a meticulously observed portrait of 80’s London, centred around the unlikely love affair between a Pakistani and a punk from the wrong side of the tracks.
Low on budget, but big on heart; the film marks Daniel Day-Lewis’s debut role and gives us a clue to his bright future.
Hanif Kureishi’s future was to be rather darker. In 2022 his life changed irrevocably; he fainted and woke up paralysed from the neck down, an experience he charts in his memoir ‘Shattered’ and in his popular blog. It was very moving to see him talk to Bella, ranging from his memories of the London of his youth to his current predicament.
His body paralysed, but his mind as sharp, daring and free as ever.
