Hanif Kureishi catches a few rays backstage
at Glastonbury 2000, by Total Blam Blam.
Vicious but ready to learn…
Hanif Kureishi’s acclaimed comedy drama, ‘The Buddha of Suburbia’, enjoys a re-run on the BBC’s Knowledge channel starting tomorrow at 9:00pm (GMT), and continues over the following week, albeit in a bizarrely scattered way. This four-part serial was originally shown on BBC2 back in 1993, and it seems that BBC Knowledge is screening the whole thing a further two and a half times (!)…presuming I have understood their schedule correctly:
21:00 – Friday 24th August – Part One
22:00 – Friday 24th August – Part Two
00:00 – Saturday 25th August – Part One
01:00 – Saturday 25th August – Part Two
21:00 – Saturday 25th August – Part Three
22:05 – Saturday 25th August – Part Four
23:30 – Monday 27th August – Part One
00:40 – Wednesday 29th August – Part Two
23:40 – Wednesday 29th August – Part Three
00:40 – Friday 31st August – Part Four
You all know about David’s contribution to the soundtrack of ‘The Buddha of Suburbia’ and the excellent album of the same name, but if you never caught the TV series the first time around, I suggest you try to this time.
This from the BBC preview page: “The south London suburbs in the 1970s are the setting for a comedy of sexual and political awakening written by Hanif Kureishi. Karim is 17 and looking for trouble, action and sex.”
And Karim, played brilliantly by Naveen Andrews, eventually finds all three, after an hilarious voyage of self-discovery that doesn’t always go quite to plan.