REVIEW: All in Good Time, The Not-God Complex, VAULT Festival ★★★☆☆

When I took my seat for All in Good Time I was greeted by a tiny yellow rubber duck on my chair and one of the performers wildly dancing amongst an array of glitter balls. And that’s not the weirdest place you’ll see a rubber duck if you catch this exciting play by The Not-God Complex.

This funny, at times confusing, play wrings out everything it can from its one–hour time slot at VAULT Festival. There’s singing, dancing, mooing and more in this take on neurodivergent time travel. Performers Zoe Glen, Billie Grace and Rebeka Dio devised and performed the piece supported by Arts Council London and The National Lottery.

We meet two ghost-y figures who journey with a young woman through history, interspersed with scenes from the present day. We are told All in Good Time is a celebration but never exactly what we are celebrating. This piece begs us to ask; why is time so important to us? Do we all experience time in the same way? What should we do when it feels like time has gotten the better of us?

All in Good Time combines projection, spoken word and song as we travel to 10,000 BC and back again. Cleverly we move from pure joy to quite sinister moments. There is beautiful and effective sound design, however I think a randomly placed movement section was unnecessary. Often times, the actors were out of sync with text appearing on the back wall and I was left questioning whether this was intentional or not.

I enjoyed the playfulness with which the young cast interacted with the audience. We were invited to take part in the performance, before being pushed to act simply as an audience again, and then we were invited back into the party. There were optional interactive moments, and we were encouraged to use the time as we wished. The performance was relaxed, with the cast telling us that we could leave at any time if we wished, and as an audience we certainly were free to engage with the piece however we wanted.

I enjoyed watching All in Good Time and I was pleased to see representation of neurodivergent minds on stage at VAULT Festival in such a colourful and joyful way, however I think this performance bit off a little more than it could chew, and therefore the quality of some sections suffered.

Recommended Drink: For this play, of course, I recommend the Time Traveller cocktail. Colourful and exciting, just like this piece.

Performance of All In Good Time have now concluded at VAULT Festival. The show ran from Jan 24th – 27th at Studio. Check the Company’s Website for future showings and projects.