There’s a certain audacity to a one-person show. One performer, one story, one mind in charge of the entire evening. Batshit, created and performed by Leah Shelton, turns that control into both its subject and its triumph. In a world quick to label women “mad”, Shelton calmly, stylishly, and with extraordinary precision, takes charge of her own narrative, and everyone else’s for that matter, for sixty taut minutes.
When you enter the tight Traverse 2, the first thing that hits you is the bank of LED strips looming above the stage like a silent judge. It’s no decorative flourish: throughout the show, that strip becomes an emotional metronome, pulsing and flickering in unnervingly close rhythm with the sound design. The coordination of light and sound, operated, I assume, from a pre-programmed desk rather than live, is one of Batshit’s finest achievements. It’s rare to see a show so sharply cued, where every visual jolt lands in perfect sync with an audio stab, making the stage feel alive with electricity and tension.
Shelton’s precision extends to her performance. There’s a deliberate absence of theatrical sloppiness here. Every gesture feels weighed; every pause has been filed down to its perfect length. That kind of control can risk coolness, but here it underlines the theme, a woman navigating a world that keeps insisting she’s unbalanced. If she’s “mad”, it’s in the same way a scalpel is mad, cold, bright, and dangerously effective.
The story itself pivots on her grandmother Gwen, locked away in 1960s Australia for having the temerity to seek independence. Out of that grim fact, Shelton builds a show that mixes cabaret, lecture, séance and scream therapy. One moment she’s a game-show host handing out diagnostic labels, the next, she’s channeling family trauma through glitter, latex and furious choreography. It’s conceptually daring stuff, but it never feels indulgent.
The sound design is half the drama. Sudden sonic cracks, looping fragments of pop culture, and disembodied voices build an aural collage that’s as unsettling as it is mesmerising. The LED rig echoes each shift, sometimes blazing white as if under interrogation, sometimes plunging us into nightclub black. Together, they make the Traverse space feel less like a theatre and more like a fever dream conducted by a very competent electrician.
For all its flash, though, Batshit remains human. Shelton keeps finding humour in the horror, a wicked wink here, a raised eyebrow there, as if to remind us that survival often requires a sense of the absurd. There’s anger, yes, but also compassion, and a strange tenderness in her control, this isn’t chaos, it’s choreography.
By the end, I’m left with admiration for both the craft and the courage. It’s a show about losing control, told by someone utterly in command. Technically stunning, intellectually sharp, and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny, Batshit proves that one woman onstage can fill a theatre more completely than most ensembles. And if that’s madness, I’d say we could do with a bit more of it.
Till Saturday October 25th
Reviewer: Greg Holstead
Reviewed: 22nd October 2025
North West End UK Rating:
Running time – 1hr
