Bat's entertainment!

As musicals go, Bat Boy is an oddity: the story of a conservative community turned on its head by the presence of a bizarre bat-human hybrid.

Its melange of kitsch, cultish influences come from low-rent Americana: sensationalist newspaper reports; B-movies; promqueen vs trailer-trash stereotypes.

An inter-species love-story about a strange, persecuted creature at the mercy of small-town bigots and mad scientists, it's a singing, dancing comic strip with a message about tolerance and embracing diversity at its core.

'Half-bat is just a metaphor for difference,' says Deven May, who plays the title character. 'I identify with it because there are things this character goes through that I went through.'

The musical began life with a report in The Weekly World News about a boy who was half-human, half-bat, found in West Virginia. Two of the writers started making up stories about what such a creature would be like. In their version, trouble starts when he becomes civilised and falls in love with the daughter of the local vet.

'It has an overdramatic quality,' says veteran British actor/director Mark Wing-Davey, whose own cult status comes courtesy of the role of Zaphod Beeblebrox in The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.

'People take themselves very seriously, like they do in B-movies. We don't do a great deal of winking at the audience.' Wing-Davey was drawn to the piece for its off-kilter quality. 'There's a slight feel of Twin Peaks,' he says, 'and I have a fondness for odd, strange things.'

First staged in the US, where it was an off-Broadway hit, Bat Boy: The Musical had its UK premiere earlier this year at the West Yorkshire Playhouse.

Despite over-egged caricatures, heavy-handed plotting and the lack of any real show-stopper of a tune, Bat Boy is worth a punt. Top billing goes to Keythe Farley and Brian Flemming's knowingly camp script, packed with sharp, witty one-liners.

Deven May comes close second: reprising the role he created for the original US version, he has immense charm and a sweet pathos as the kookily cute nocturnal boy-creature found by thick hicks in a mineshaft. Dressed up with pointy ears and sticky-outy fangs, his oddball charisma is effortless and the physicality of his turn as Edgar the Bat Boy is breathtaking.