Writers: Daniel Bainbridge and Cam Scriven
Director: Marlie Haco
The idea of immortality, a perfect future in which no-one ever gets ill, is a big concept. It’s been covered from multiple angles, in every art form, and the conclusion is invariably the same: that life is only precious if it is limited.
Good Day doesn’t succeed in finding a new way to express this, but it does do a wonderful job at outlining all the exhaustive arguments, throwing in the question of AI as sentient for good measure.
Zara is 533 years old, and she’s done it all: she’s been in love, had kids, learned karate and multiple languages, seen the world, and now she reckons she’s done. But, due to the amazing advances in scientific technology, in order to die she has to spend a year in therapy proving that she’s of sound mind, and that she really does want to end her life. Along the way, she falls in love one last time with goofy, enthusiastic Joe, and befriends her AI therapist who starts to question her own existence and the fact of her own death when, after the year of therapy is up, she will be deprogrammed.
Writers Daniel Bainbridge and Cam Scriven have created a funny, articulate script. They’ve managed to write a rich and largely believable future, whilst keeping dialogue quippy and relatable. Olivia Barrowclough’s role as Alex, the AI therapist, is a particularly tricky one, both to write and play. Barrowclough manages to keep up the slightly robotic delivery whilst also showing that Alex’s short experience of life is enough to give her some very human idiosyncrasies and a thirst for new adventures.
Justin Nardella’s production design is impressively slick. Uniforms of chic grey sportswear and two grey benches are enough to set the hyper-modern scene, whilst a tryptic screen and little wrist lights cover the techy side of the future. It’s simple and clean; no need for anything complicated to present a minimalist utopia.
Highly choreographed expressive vignettes intersplice the plot, and whilst they do add to the overall effect, their meaning is unclear; they feel like filler in a story that doesn’t really need it. Better to just get on with the main narrative.
Good Day is near-perfectly executed, but whilst immortality is a big philosophical question, the answer is ultimately and necessarily basic. This would be ideal for a younger audience, say 13 or 14 years old, who are just starting to ask themselves questions like this, and that is said with the highest of compliments. It’s hard to map out such a major question with such clarity, harder still to make it funny and nuanced. But it’s wasted on adults.
Runs until 12 March 2023
