''The Buddha of Suburbia'' is a British four-part

television serial In television and radio programming, a serial is a show that has a continuing plot that unfolds in a sequential episode-by-episode fashion. Serials typically follow main story arcs that span entire television seasons or even the complete run of ...

, directed by

Roger Michell Roger Michell (5 June 1956 – 22 September 2021) was a South African-born British theatre, television and film director. He was best known for directing films such as ''Notting Hill (film), Notting Hill'' and ''Venus (2006 film), Venus'', as ...

, originally broadcast on

BBC Two BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream an ...

in November 1993. Based on the 1990 novel of the same name by

Hanif Kureishi Hanif Kureishi (born 5 December 1954) is a British playwright, screenwriter, filmmaker and novelist of South Asian and English descent. In 2008, ''The Times'' included Kureishi in its list of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945. Early l ...

, the series starred

Naveen Andrews Naveen William Sidney Andrews (born 17 January 1969) is a British-American actor. He is best known for his role as Sayid Jarrah in the television series ''Lost'' (2004–2010), for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and a Primetime ...

as the main character, Karim Amir. Its theme song, as well as other original music for the series, was written and performed by

David Bowie David Robert Jones (8 January 194710 January 2016), known professionally as David Bowie ( ), was an English singer-songwriter and actor. A leading figure in the music industry, he is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the ...

(this work also inspired Bowie's related 'soundtrack' album of the same name). Unable to find distribution in America, the series was given a limited engagement screening at

The Public Theater The Public Theater is a New York City arts organization founded as the Shakespeare Workshop in 1954 by Joseph Papp, with the intention of showcasing the works of up-and-coming playwrights and performers.Epstein, Helen. ''Joe Papp: An American Li ...

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

from December 1994 to January 1995.

Overview

Karim Amir is a mixed-race 17-year-old who lives in a South London suburb during the 1970s. With an English mother and a Pakistani father, Karim is uncertain of his cultural identity. As his father becomes a kind of spiritual guru to the surrounding middle-class neighbours, Karim begins to explore his cultural roots with hopes that he will achieve sexual and racial self-realisation.

Cast

Production

Filming

Segments for the series were filmed at Naveen Andrews' old school

Emanuel School Emanuel School is an independent, co-educational day school in Battersea, south-west London. The school was founded in 1594 by Anne Sackville, Lady Dacre and Queen Elizabeth I and occupies a 12-acre (4.9 ha) site close to Clapham Junction ra ...

. The extras used in the series were real

punks Punk or punks may refer to: Genres, subculture, and related aspects * Punk rock, a music genre originating in the 1970s associated with various subgenres * Punk subculture, a subculture associated with punk rock, or aspects of the subculture ...

skinhead A skinhead is a member of a subculture which originated among working class youths in London, England, in the 1960s and soon spread to other parts of the United Kingdom, with a second working class skinhead movement emerging worldwide in th ...

s, suedeheads,

hippies A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around ...

, and musicians cast by actress

Barbie Wilde Barbie Wilde is a Canadian-born British actress and writer, perhaps best known for appearing as the Female Cenobite in '' Hellbound: Hellraiser II'' (1988) – the second of ten Hellraiser films based on Clive Barker's novella, ''The Hellbound ...

Music

The series features many songs from the seventies, as well as music written and performed specifically for the series by

. While a

soundtrack album A soundtrack album is any album that incorporates music directly recorded from the soundtrack of a particular feature film or television show. The first such album to be commercially released was Walt Disney's ''Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs'' ...

by Bowie was released under the same name on 8 November 1993, the music on the album is completely reworked, with the exception of the programme's theme song " The Buddha of Suburbia". A promotional music video was made for the song, featuring Bowie performing the song while strolling around the London suburb of Bickley as scenes from the series are intercut throughout. The rest of the original television

soundtrack A soundtrack is recorded music accompanying and synchronised to the images of a motion picture, drama, book, television program, radio program, or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack o ...

remained unreleased.

References

External links

*
British Film Institute Screen Online''The Buddha of Suburbia''
at the British Library - includes related articles, videos and items from Kureishi's archive {{DEFAULTSORT:Buddha of Suburbia, The 1993 British television series debuts 1993 British television series endings 1990s British drama television series Serial drama television series 1990s British television miniseries British Indian films English-language television shows BBC television dramas BBC Film films Films with screenplays by Hanif Kureishi Television shows based on British novels Television shows set in London Television series set in the 1970s Films shot in London