Olivier Award-nominated actress Beverley Klein is to headline the London premiere of Memoriam, a new play that sets the ethics of artificial intelligence and virtual reality against the fading of living Holocaust memory. Written by British-Israeli playwright Noga Flaishon and directed by Daniel Goldman, the production runs at Southwark Playhouse Borough from 19 October to 21 November 2026, with a press night on 26 October.
The play is produced by Tangram Theatre Company, Goldman’s own company, whose previous work includes the OFFIE Award-winning Thebes Land at the Arcola Theatre. Memoriam will be staged in The Large auditorium at Southwark Playhouse’s Borough site on Newington Causeway, with a running time of 90 minutes and an age guidance of 14+.
The Story
Set in the near future, Memoriam imagines a world in which a technology company is able to extract, package and sell human memories as fully immersive virtual reality experiences. Rachel works as a buyer for such a company — skilled, persuasive and commercially driven. When her grandmother Rivka becomes the last living Holocaust survivor, Rachel identifies both a professional opportunity and a profound moral obligation: to ensure those memories are preserved for generations to come. But what begins as a business proposition rapidly escalates into a family conflict over ownership, legacy and what the living owe the dead.
Klein, who received a 2025 Olivier Award nomination for Best Supporting Performance in a Musical for her portrayal of Yente in Fiddler on the Roof at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre — a production that subsequently transferred to the Barbican and embarked on a sold-out UK and Ireland tour — will play Rivka, the elderly survivor at the centre of the conflict. She is perhaps best known in recent years for playing Fraulein Schneider in the acclaimed West End production of Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club. Across a career of more than 45 years, her stage work has included the original cast of Les Misérables, roles at the National Theatre, the Donmar Warehouse and the Royal Court, and television appearances in Endeavour, Call the Midwife, Mr Selfridge and Inspector Morse, among many others. Further casting for the production has yet to be announced.
An Urgent Cultural Moment
The play arrives at a time of considerable public debate about how the Holocaust is remembered as the generation of direct survivors diminishes. A 2025 study by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany found that a third of young adults aged 18 to 29 in the United Kingdom were unable to name Auschwitz or any Nazi concentration camp, while nearly a quarter of all UK respondents reported having encountered Holocaust denial or distortion on social media. Simultaneously, rapid advances in artificial intelligence and data commercialisation have made the play’s central premise — a corporation monetising a person’s most intimate memories — feel less like science fiction and more like a pressing ethical question.
Flaishon, who holds an MFA in Writing for Stage and Broadcast Media from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and has written for the Doctor Who universe at Big Finish Productions, has spoken about the origins of the work. “Memoriam was written during the pandemic, but it was also shaped by seeing theatre productions of Jewish stories with no Jewish creatives, the endless stream of Holocaust media centred on gentile protagonists, and the casual appropriation of Holocaust imagery for unrelated causes,” she said. “The Holocaust, as uncomfortable as it is to say, is immensely useful on the internet. It made me wonder whether the people who want our stories actually want to hear us tell them. As the Holocaust turns a lived memory into history, Memoriam asks what kind of story it will become — and who gets to tell it.”
Goldman, whose own grandmother was a Holocaust survivor, described the project as personally significant. “With anti-Semitism and Holocaust misinformation on the rise, and AI seeping into our lives, it feels vitally important to be directing this deeply moving, very funny new play by Noga about how we remember and what we pass on to those we love,” he said.
Award Recognition and Youth Outreach
Before reaching London, Memoriam has already accumulated a notable pedigree. It was selected as one of five plays from 3,000 applications for the Royal Court Theatre’s Open Submissions Festival 2025, where a staged reading featured actress Maureen Lipman. The play was also shortlisted for the Papatango Playwriting Prize, longlisted for the Verity Bargate Award in 2024 and named runner-up in the Jewish Playwrights Prize 2025, a recognition that led directly to its world premiere at Main Street Theatre in Houston, Texas.
David Byrne, Artistic Director and Chief Executive of the Royal Court Theatre, described the play as “an astonishing new work” and a highlight of last year’s Open Submissions Festival, adding that he was looking forward to seeing it fully realised at Southwark Playhouse Borough.
To widen access, the production will make 40 tickets per performance available to under-25s at £10 each — a deliberate effort to reach the younger audiences for whom awareness of the Holocaust is at its most fragile. Tickets are on sale now, with full details and booking available via the Southwark Playhouse website.
