BATSHIT is a one-person show written and directed by Leah Shelton. Exploring her grandmother Gwen’s time in the Heathcote Hospital (a psychiatric unit in Perth) and the concept of ‘hysteria’, the show is moving and reflects the misogyny that is still deep-rooted in our society today.
With a refrain of “bring me the axe” (inspired by a story of her grandmother smashing a television), Shelton uses both her family’s personal history and stories that feel personable and relatable– a feature which should not be underestimated in such an emotion-driven performance. This is brought home when different audience members are ‘interviewed’ with 1960s-style therapy questions: we are made to feel like patients who are not taken seriously, just as Gwen and countless other women have been.
The use of staging and the set throughout the show is incredibly impressive and powerful: by the end of the show, disregarded medical reports are spread across the stage as Shelton reads out names of a myriad of women who have been sectioned. However, occasionally the staging takes away from the powerful narrative, such as an over-use of TV recordings.
The influence of the cabaret world (in which Shelton first started working in) is palpable and comedic at the start of the show–which makes audiences both invested and intrigued. Watching someone perform Judy Garland’s ‘Get Happy’ whilst dressed in a green dress and wearing a gag is at once incredibly funny but also moving and sobering, given the number of women whose spirit has been curbed because they are “just overdramatic.”
Overall, I would thoroughly recommend a trip to see BATSHIT, and to continue having conversations about mental health–especially as the show is part of the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival.
Photo by Cecilia Martin, courtesy of the Traverse Theatre.
