WATCH THE TRAILER
THE STORY
William and Maggie have spent a lifetime making plans together. Christmases. Holidays. Children. Dogs. Homes. Even the occasional questionable leisure activity.
Now, after more than fifty years of marriage, they’ve decided to make one final plan — their deaths.
Still completely in love, William and Maggie have one great fear about growing old: that eventually, one of them will have to carry on without the other. So they give themselves six weeks to put their affairs in order and throw the ultimate farewell: a Death Day… part wedding, part wake, and the biggest celebration of their lives.
Their sons are horrified. James, a successful philosopher who has made a career out of explaining life, suddenly discovers he has absolutely no idea how to deal with death.
His younger brother Ben simply wants his parents to change their minds. As the family wrestles with a decision none of them can accept, William and Maggie get busy planning.
There are invitations to send, outfits to choose, speeches to write, bucket lists to finish and fifty years of memories to unpack.
Funny, tender and occasionally outrageous, Death Day is a six-part black comedy-drama about love, family, ageing, and whether choosing the perfect goodbye is ever really possible.
MEET THE FAMILY
A stubborn, sharp-tongued Scotsman who has spent his life believing every problem can be solved with a decent plan. His final one might be his most ambitious yet: die happy, beside the woman he loves, before life gets the chance to separate them.
WILLIAM
MAGGIE
Warm, glamorous and gloriously unembarrassed by life, Maggie has spent more than fifty years turning William’s edges into something resembling a marriage. She doesn’t want to die. She just can’t imagine living without him.
William and Maggie’s eldest son, a bestselling philosopher who has built a career answering life’s biggest questions. Unfortunately, when his parents announce their Death Day, he discovers philosophy is considerably easier when it isn’t your mum and dad.
JAMES
The younger son and emotional heart of the family. Where James tries to understand the plan, Ben simply refuses to accept it. He doesn’t want a profound goodbye, a beautiful ending or a philosophical explanation. He just wants more time.
BEN
James’s wife and the unofficial therapist of a family spectacularly ill-equipped to discuss its feelings. Warm, perceptive and quietly formidable, Ruby may understand William and Maggie’s decision better than anyone, which doesn’t mean she agrees with it.
RUBY
William’s brother, former prisoner, loyal accomplice and the only person who hears the Death Day plan without completely losing his mind. While everyone else debates the morality of it, Ray has a more practical question: what needs doing?
UNCLE RAY
ABOUT THE CREATOR
Calum Ward is a London-based producer and creative with a background in advertising and branding.
After almost twenty years in the advertising industry, Death Day is his first original scripted series.
“The idea began with a question that was both ridiculous and strangely logical: we plan almost every important moment of our lives, so why don’t we plan the end?
From there came William and Maggie, a couple who love each other enough to contemplate the one thing their family can’t: saying goodbye on their own terms.
At its heart, Death Day isn’t really about the fear of dying. It’s about the fear of surviving without the person you love. It’s about the people we leave behind, the absurdity of families, the indignities of getting older, and what a lifetime spent loving someone actually means when you’re finally forced to imagine life without them.
Naturally, it's told with a very dark sense of humour.
But really, it’s a love story.”