Review: Memoriam, Southwark Playhouse

L-R Rachel Barry, Ben Wiggins and Beverley Klein in Memoriam, Southwark Playhouse. Photo: Charlie Flint If scientists could extract memories and replay them through virtual reality headsets for others to experience, whose memories would be worth preserving and who benefits? That’s the premise of Noga Flaishon’s play Memoriam at the Southwark Playhouse. Rachel (Rachel Barry) works at the company that preserves memories and then puts an edited version up for rent for people to experience. It’s an expensive process, and the company needs its next big hit, which is when Rachel’s boss Chris (Ben Wiggins) finds out that her grandma Rivka (Beverley Klein) is now the last living holocaust survivor. Rachel’s desire to preserve important memories is mixed with a desire to do well at work, but her brother David (Ashley Margolis) is dead set against it. While such an idea of commercialisation might seem like sci-fi (currently), it isn’t that different to how social media companies make money out…