Batshit
★★★★★ Visually haunting
Traverse: Wed 22 – Sat 25 Oct 2025
Review by Erin Frances Speirs
Quiet Riot’s Batshit is a powerful reflection on the treatment of women’s mental health, running at the Traverse until Saturday 25 as part of the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival.
Making use of striking visuals; hypnotic, commentary-filled sequences of movement and lip syncing; and complex multi-media use, all under the direction of Ursula Martinez, Batshit is a tribute to writer and performer Leah Shelton’s grandmother, Gwen, and all the women society has deemed to be ‘crazy’.
Leah Shelton as Gwen, in Batshit. Pic: Pia Johnson.
In 1963, the then forty-two year old Gwen was incarcerated in Heathcote hospital in Australia following ‘delusions’ of wanting to leave her husband. Whilst incarcerated she was treated, without her consent, with ETC therapy and an array of medications.
Shelton uses projections of her grandmother’s real medical records to tell this true, horrific tale. However, the use of multi-media does not end there with vox-pop interviews from the 1960s to now, old medical discussions of hysteria, and real-time CCTV footage of Shelton—as both Gwen and herself—on stage.
This fifty minute performance is packed full of biting feminist discourse, moving quickly through the story of Gwen’s mental health troubles, including taking an axe to a television.
dark witty humour
Filled with dark witty humour and justified unbridled anger, as well as grief, Shelton also takes her audience on a journey through the history of women’s mental health – from the Ancient Greek concept of the wandering womb, to the contemporary treatment of Amber Heard in both the courtroom and general society,
Shelton highlights how women are disproportionately diagnosed with such mental health issues as anxiety, depression and bipolar disorder. She does this with flare, donning a blonde wig when she appears as Gwen, moving around the space with graceful precision.
Leah Shelton in Batshit. Pic: Pia Johnson.
The production design is detailed and provoking. Clinical white tiles cascade down the back wall into the auditorium. A 1960s television is used for multimedia throughout the production, while a wooden psychiatry bed with musty, moss green velvet cushioning, and a microphone immediately set the period and tone. Combining this with the fluorescent lights hanging from above creates a chilling environment.
Batshit is packed with visceral and haunting imagery. Shelton, dressed in a ballgown, dancing around with an axe, one arm an elongated prosthetic which she later removes, creating spectacular shapes as she swings the axe around the space. In another moment, Gwen is sucked down into the psychiatry bed, with only Shelton’s legs tossing above the cushions until she fully disappears underneath.
Throughout, the fluorescent lights heighten the tone, flickering and flashing as tension builds. This is used most effectively when Gwen is receiving ETC therapy, with the lights strobing in time with jarring electrical currents.
Filled with both rage and love
The production ends with the most powerful visual of them all: Shelton, now as herself, smashes up the television with an axe whilst reading off a never ending list of women who have been needlessly deemed as insane.
She throws paper up into the air, a fan propelling it around the space as more pieces fall from the ceiling. Filled with both rage and love, this scene encapsulates the themes of misogyny and the stigmatisation of women’s mental health with vigour.
Batshit is a spectacularly crafted, crucially influential piece of theatre exploring the collective grief and rage all women hold. Leaving the theatre you cannot help but ask, “wouldn’t you also want to grab an axe?”
Running time: 50 minutes (no interval).
Traverse Theatre, 10 Cambridge St, Edinburgh EH1 2ED
Wednesday 22 – Saturday 25 October 2025
Wed – Fri: 7pm; Sat: 5pm (Trav 2).
Tickets and details: Book here.
Leah Shelton website: www.leahshelton.live
Instagram: @leahsheltonlive
Facebook: @missleahshelton
Leah Shelton in Batshit. Pic: Cecilia Martin Photography
ENDS
