It is a sweltering summer afternoon and I’m blowing bubbles over the heads of Stephen Frears and Hanif Kureishi while they have their pictures taken in a sun-dappled corner of the latter’s garden. Perched in front of them as they sit side by side – Kureishi, who has been tetraplegic since breaking his neck in a fall in 2022, is in a wheelchair – is a silver cake made to look like a washing machine, commissioned to mark the 40th anniversary of their witty, raunchy comedy-drama My Beautiful Laundrette.
Some of the bubbles land on the cake’s surface, causing everyone present to make a mental note to skip the icing, while others burst on the brim of Frears’s hat or drift into Kureishi’s eyes. It is not perhaps the most dignified look for an esteemed duo celebrating an enduring Oscar-nominated gem. Don’t think they haven’t noticed, either. As the bubbles pop around them, Kureishi upbraids the photographer for trampling on his garden – “Mind my flowers!” – while Frears grumbles: “I could be watching the cricket.”
