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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Arifa Akbar

Distant Memories of the Near Future review – dating dystopia makes you glad to be alive now

David Head in Distant Memories of the Near Future at the Arcola theatre, London.
Profound questions … David Head in Distant Memories of the Near Future at the Arcola theatre, London. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian

The year is 2043 and the world’s data has been so comprehensively harvested that a dating app promises subscribers a perfect match with every compatible partner on the planet. As the advert tells us: “Love is simply an algorithm.”

That is, unless you are deemed “undesirable” by the algorithm. This near future has intimations of the Orwellian, including mandated adverts spewing out on screen to its citizens and artificial intelligence giving lessons on humanness.

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