We sat down with Scottish performer and viral poet Kate Ireland about her theatrical debut with Golden Time (and Other Behavioural Management Strategies), a sharp, heartfelt exploration of ADHD, education, and adult life. Inspired by the school reward system “Golden Time,” Kate uses spoken word, storytelling, and audience interaction to unpack time management struggles and neurodivergent experiences. The show blends humour and honesty, questioning societal definitions of success and celebrating joyful defiance. Directed by Giulia Grillo, this vibrant solo show invites audiences to rethink productivity and self-worth with warmth and wit. Catch the show at Pleasance Dome (Ace Dome) from Wednesday 30th July – Monday 25th August 2025 (not 11th, 18th) at 13:30
You describe the show as a love letter to ADHD but also a critique of the education system. How do you balance those two themes?
Neurodivergent people express themselves and live full and creative lives in spite of the education system that has, more often than not, made them feel like too much, if not entirely hate themselves. Within a critique of the systems that govern us, there has to be joy and levity. I don’t intend to doom anyone out, conversely I’m not interested in sugar coating what it’s like to be a child at school, particularly if you are different.
I’d say the work is a love letter to the child within all of us, that sits alongside our adult selves as we pretend to be well adjusted, high functioning humans. That child, whether coded as neurodivergent or not, is a guiding light for many of my deepest wants and needs. I have learned to respect and honour the part of me that needs to fidget, talk a lot, wander around, be impulsive and often respond to a highly alert intuition. Once I began to trust her rather than suppress her, my life became infinitely better. I balance this reverence for the true version of myself with an observational critique,
I guess by the awareness that a strength and connection to myself and others has developed through a shared and empathic experience of school, of work, of friendship, of society in general.
Going to school as a kid who is creative and hyper-sensitive can be really tough, but it is also a real gift, and one worth sharing.
The concept of “Golden Time” dates back to the 1980s and the show invites audience members to help keep you on task with a stopwatch. How did you come up with this interactive element, and how do audiences respond?
I’m really obsessed with the concept of time and how it’s experienced culturally, particularly within our productivity obsessed society. We are always looking to spend, save and maximize time, with every moment accounted for or logged on a timesheet. When working in schools and researching for the show I found that these restrictive time standards are present throughout our work and education systems. The strategy of Golden Time is that children literally have minutes deducted from their free time if they misbehave; time is a commodity that can be earned and lost.
I wanted to introduce the concept of a stopwatch to the audience to add an element of risk and play, inviting them to help me stay on track in order to tell the story within our allotted 1 hour time frame (also the length of golden time) as well as presenting them with my issues of time blindness and efficiency (I’m often late).
What role did your Roundhouse Residency and workshops with young people play in shaping the show?
As a resident artist at the Roundhouse I developed my original Golden Time poem, a 10-minute epic spoken word piece, into the first full length sharing. With their support in script development as well as learning from my amazing peers on the course, I got to expand the world of the play and develop my research into a much more expansive world. Collaboration and accountability was key in developing this show! The Roundhouse’s belief in me was invaluable in making me feel like a proper artist with a story to tell. I also brought Giulia Grillo, my amazing director, on board during my residency, and she was instrumental in making the show what it is today. Her insight and attention to detail when it comes to the emotional arcs of the play and characterization were so inspiring. I’m very lucky.
I’ve been working with children and teenagers for about 5 years now. I started out as a SEND support worker for nonverbal autistic children, and have since worked in primary schools, secondary schools, colleges, young offender centres and neurodivergent community groups either in a support role or as a creative facilitator. These experiences have transformed my understanding of learning, and how school systems and social circles are ill equipped to understand those who deviate from our strict codes of normality. I also find that a dramatic shift happens in children when they turn around 13 or 14. I’ve watched curious, playful, joyous children become awkward, embarrassed and terrified of expressing themselves fully due to wanting to fit in. I’ve found that through working with young people, I have reencountered parts of my former self, as well as seen with adult eyes the systems children come up against and have to contend with as well as the way self-expression and creativity is dismissed and ignored. All of this hugely informed my writing and the research and development of Golden Time.
How important is humour in talking about serious topics like ADHD and educational challenges?
So important! Humour is such a tool for connection. I believe in holding the audience’s hand and not alienating them. We live in a surreal, confusing and ultimately hilarious time if you look at it that way- we live inside the simulacrum, no one knows what the fuck is going on.
I find that people who have ADHD or possess the traits of a highly sensitive, connection-seeking, distractible person, are often the most warm and funny. Being able to connect the dots between ideas and metaphors and subvert and question the norms and cultural codes we have adopted by rote is how humour is formed. Neurodivergent people are experts at noticing things and calling them out for their bizarre irony. Humour is a vital tool for storytelling. A balance of joy and comedy with the intimate and profound is how you engage an audience in a full spectrum of emotions. It can’t be serious all the time, silliness is important. Simultaneously it can’t all be a riotous romp with no depth. It’s a balancing act and one we are constantly toying with in rehearsals for Golden Time.
How do you hope Golden Time will impact conversations around neurodiversity in education?
I’d love people to reflect on the systemic influences they have perhaps internalized subconsciously, starting in education. Art can redirect our attention towards the structures and systems we take as a given consequence of our reality, and highlight the idea that they are things we can actively resist. So many people who are struggling with depression, anxiety, stress or burnout are convinced they are personally responsible for their own dysregulated internal self. This show posits the idea that our culture, beginning in education, sets us up to fail.