Marjorie Prime is set in 2062 and 85 year old Marjorie (Anne Reid) is living with her daughter Tess (Nancy Carroll) and her husband Jon (Tony Jayawardena).  I remember in the 1980s the charity, Age Exchange set up in Blackheath a Reminiscence Project to help people with failing memories. Age Exchange found that often old people had crystal clear memories of their young lives and relating their stories made them feel valued for their living history recollection and not so worried about where they put their teeth that morning. 

Coming forward eighty years in America, Tess and Jon are using a hologram of Marjorie’s now deceased husband to make her feel better and more easily manageable living with them.  The holograms, generated by a computer programme that can be primed with their memories, which are sometimes sourced from old letters, photos and diaries.  The hologram is a young and handsome memory of Marjorie’s husband, Walter (Richard Fleeshman) who has been programmed to be kind and supportive.  

Together Marjorie and Walter look out towards the sea and recall taking Toni the poodle for walks on the beach.  Marjorie was a violinist and they play Vivaldi to her.  They talk about another suitor of Marjorie’s, Jean Paul reputedly a handsome professional tennis player number eight in the rankings, but remind Marjorie that she chose Walter as her companion, not the Frenchman.  “French Canadian!” she says derisorily. 

Jonathan Fensom’s set is a wood panelled living room cum kitchen with large picture windows showing sea and sky with clouds moving by day and stars in the sky at night as they look out and wonder if there will be an afterlife and what form it will take, if any at all. Blinds meet coming both up and down across the windows.  When the hologram is not in use it is impassive in the wings. At one point, imitating Alexa or Siri, Walter says amusingly, “I don’t have that information.”