When they called saying your body had been found, I had one immediate thought. I remember thinking that maybe now I'd be free.

Sam hasn't spoken to her mother Kath for three years when she learns that she's been found dead in the New Mexico desert.

Travelling to the small town of Taos to identify the body, she discovers Kath had become embroiled in a shadowy enterprise, offering Sam an unimaginable chance to rebuild their broken relationship. But to do so, she must decide whether she can finish what her mother started.

David Farr's compelling new play is both an unsettling science fiction and an intimate study of loss and bereavement, examining how artificial intelligence could alter our understanding of death, consciousness and the soul.

A Dead Body in Taos opened at the Bristol Old Vic in September 2022.

David Farr is a writer and director. His plays The Danny Crowe Show, Elton John's Glasses, Night of the Soul, Ramayana, The UN Inspector, The Heart of Robin Hood, The Hunt and a collection of adaptations have all been published by Faber.