‘She’s off her trolley. Nuttier than a fruitcake. A couple of kangaroos loose in the top paddock.’ She’s ‘crazy’.
For years women have been locked up, medicated, pathologized and silenced with the label ‘crazy’ – and it seems not much has changed (just look at Britney Spears). Challenging these preconceptions, acclaimed Australian performer Leah Shelton makes her Edinburgh Festival Fringe debut this summer with her solo show BATSHIT.
BATSHIT explores the stigmatisation of women’s mental health – the myths, fantasies and fears that keep women compliant and the systems that let us down. The show is a requiem for Leah’s grandmother, Gwen, who was incarcerated at Heathcote hospital in Perth, Australia, in 1963, and given a cocktail of medication and ECT treatment without her consent. Full of rage, humour and grief, BATSHIT places the heart-wrenching true story of Gwen inside a surreal world of medical reports, absurd horror imagery, deadpan jokes, vox-pops, CCTV footage, dance, lip-sync and vulnerable storytelling.
Directed by Olivier award-winning performance artist Ursula Martinez, BATSHIT is the culmination of a decade-long collaboration between Leah & Ursula, who also directed Leah’s second solo work ON HEAT and has entrusted Leah to perform her infamous Hanky Panky act in cabarets around the world.
From the Ancient Greek concept of the wandering womb to the mistrust of women in our courtrooms and doctor’s offices today, BATSHIT is a wildly theatrical, unexpectedly funny, and deeply intimate interrogation of female madness.
