David Finnigan: You’re Safe Til 2024

Canberra-born playwright David Finnigan began, in 2018, what he decided would be a six-year stage project, You’re Safe Til 2024. To begin his research, he asked 30 scientists two simple questions: What’s the biggest change happening in the world today? What’s going to happen in the future?

Armed with a projector, family photos and a pile of sand, Finnigan relates how 75 hours in modern Australia came to collide with an epic sweep of history during this compelling show.

At the end of 2019, in the English countryside, Finnigan began writing a play about the seven turning points that have brought us to this moment in time – our ecosystems transformed, our planet on the brink of unthinkable climate disaster. But then his hometown of Canberra was hit by bushfires. As an area the size of England burned and one billion animals perished, he started to receive texts from loved ones racing to evacuate amid the devastation.

In a performance that interweaves 75,000 years of humanity with the incredibly personal account of his best friend’s escape, Finnigan calls on scientific research, phone footage and storytelling to illuminate unprecedented global change and how we’ve arrived here. Shot through with humour, pop culture and a rich electronic soundtrack, You’re Safe Til 2024 speaks of resilience and hope.