How does Lochhead vividly depict the atmosphere of the laundrette in Laundrette? Laundrette We sit nebulous in steam. It calms the air and makes the windows stream rippling the hinterland's big houses to a blur of bedsits - not a patch on what they were before. We stuff the tub, jam money in the slot, sit back on rickle chairs not reading. The paperbacks in our pockets curl. Our eyes are riveted. Our own colours whirl. We pour in smithereens of soap. The machine sobs through its cycle. The rhythm throbs and changes. Suds drool and slobber in the churn. Our duds don't know which way to turn. The dark shoves one man in, lugging a bundle like a wandering Jew. Linen washed in public here. We let out of the bag who we are. This youngwife has a fine stack of sheets, each pair a present. She admires their clean cut air of colourschemes and being chosen. Are the dyes fast? This christening lather will be the first test. This woman is deadpan before the rinse and sluice of the family in a bagwash. Let them stew in their juice to a final fankle, twisted, wrung out into rope, hard to unravel. She sees a kaleidoscope For her to narrow her eyes and blow smoke at, his overalls and pants ballooning, tangling with her smalls and the teeshirts skinned from her wriggling son. She has a weather eye for what might shrink or run. This dour man does for himself. Before him, half lost, his small possessions swim. Cast off, random they nose and nudge the porthole glass like flotsam. (Liz Lochhead)