This is what West End musicals should be all about. A rollicking good story from expectant curtain-up to clap-along finale, a powerful message delivered with sufficient complexity and humour to avoid being patronising, and all executed with flawless slickness and energy. The musical's origins in tabloid headline "Bat Boy Found in a Cave" sets the tone for a well judged combination of genuinely funny satire on the intolerance, hypocrisy and ignorance of herd-like communities (here the bible-belt hicksville Hope Falls, USA) with an increasingly dark twisted plot that unravels in a pool of blood, incest and multiple deaths.
      A strange half-human creature is discovered in a cage, made wilder by rejection and scapegoating by the hysterical locals who brand him a freak. Bat Boy is tamed into the word-perfect preppy Edgar by the wonderfully up-tight twin-setted vet's wife (Rebecca Vere) and wins the affection of cute blonde teeny-bopper Emma Williams. His fate is increasingly entwined with the family's own domestic tensions - the vet's compassion in sparing his life on condition that his wife will love him again turns to jealous blood-lust at his wife's doting affection and loyalty, in a courageous second half in which the seeds of the first reach glorious fruition.
      Deven May's physical and vocal performance is mesmerising, as he transforms from cave-clinging animal to the naive and beautifully-voiced outsider who asks the minister to cure him of his inhuman cravings for blood and apologises to the cow as he drains its neck of blood. The rest of the cast sing and dance their way happily through a number of different roles and genders before a cleverly lit versatile set full of thoughtful touches (blood cells and faces flitting across screens, cartoon tree sign-posts), from rap numbers through gospel and rock opera. Ultimately Bat Boy's sleight of hand is in being at once a playful poke at its own genre (including a string of playful nods to other musicals) and a shining example of a fun show.
Maya Lester