BATSHIT is an unexpectedly funny, but also deeply intimate story of female madness. Created and performed by Leah Shelton (AU) and directed by Olivier award-winning performance artist Ursula Martinez (UK), this is a portrait cum-memoir of Leah’s grandmother Gwen, who was incarcerated for seeking personal independence from her husband in 1960s Australia.
It looks like Gwen just didn’t like her husband very much anymore, but in this era that constituted a mental illness which required serious medical interventions.
Using Gwen’s actual medical records from the period, real voice over clips, video clips and television interviews, this highly technical show transports the audience back in time to consider what now seems clear, from this evidence, the sexual inequality, of a deeply divisive, and misogynistic Australia of the 1960s.
In the powerful opening scene, to the backing of Amazing Grace, played at quarter speed, we see a woman’s frail figure, first in silhouette, with elongated stick-like arms, impossibly thin, one holding an axe. Your brain refuses to believe that it is human, until it starts moving. As the lights come up, the grotesque grinning figure twirls like a marionette, 60s style Wizard of Oz dress flowing outward. The styling is pure David Lynch meets Judy Garland, complete with prosthetically elongated arms and axe.
Suddenly a bank of 25 LED lights above the stage turn off in a hyper-fast sequence, finishing with a pop! Plunging the audience into total darkness. From where I’m sitting right in the centre, back row, it creates an extraordinary disconcerting and deeply effective ‘long corridor effect’. Wow!
After a moment of darkness and with prosthetics removed, we are treated with to a false bonhomie Shelton, Just a few jokes to warm you up, folks. The jokes are intentionally Corny. In other words, let’s just forget what we’ve all seen and pretend it never happened. This is a regular theme through the show, absurd sketches followed by ‘normality’. Although there are also regular detours.
What do an axe-wielding maniac, and a box of chocolates have in common?
They’ll both kill your dog!
At one point a white coat wearing Shelton asks questions of the audience, with responses typed onto the projection screen in real time. Some unexpected answers draw a few nervous laughs. The conclusion, by the ‘medical professional’, at the end of the audiences’ questioning is that we have a mental illness for which the only treatment is drugs and ECG treatment!
This is what Gwen received. Drugged up to the eyeballs and electro cured to the point where she was eventually returned, fixed to her husband’s care.
Whilst it could be argued that this is just a series of sketches and vox pop videos set to a clever soundscape, I must say I found it extremely effective, entertaining, and technically brilliant.
Bring Me The Axe merch is available in the foyer!
Reviewer: Greg Holstead
Reviewed: 11th August 2024
North West End UK Rating:
Running time – 50 mins