Review: The Mad Ones
A musical for angsty Jewish mothers and their daughters
It’s rare that a musical feels like it’s been written just for you, but sitting beside my 18-year-old daughter in the audience at The Mad Ones – I was in tears. And not the polite theatre kind. The gulping, mascara-running sort that come when a show hits you right in the kishkes.
Let me explain. My daughter recently passed her driving test and finished school—on the same day— we saw The Mad Ones – an intimate, beautifully staged coming-of-age musical about a teenage girl preparing to take her driving test and finish school. Now do you understand?
From the moment it started, it felt as though the writers Kait Kerrigan and Bree Lowdermilk had documented my life (and my girl’s) and mirrored it on the tiny stage. Directed with confidence and clarity by Emily Susanne Lloyd, the story of Samantha Brown is a study of a gifted teen perched at the edge of adulthood, grappling with grief, memory, and the freedom of choice. Snap!
Sam begins that journey nervously, stuck on the driveway in her car, trying to decide whether to follow the life everyone expects of her or drive off into the unknown. It’s a deceptively simple setup, but what follows is a deeply emotional ride through friendship, loss and identity.
Dora Gee is stunning as Sam. Her voice is enormous and she uses it to great effect carrying the emotional weight of the story with the help of ally and best friend Kelly played by the magnetic Courtney Stapleton.
In time we realise Kelly has died, but her presence is so vivid, so full of life, that her absence hits harder when the truth lands. The age of the protagonist and her bestie may suggest high school musical , but The Mad Ones is so much more than that. It’s a musical about letting go and holding on with songs packed with humour and honesty. And the harmonies? Absolutely shattering. No one slacks in this show of four, the other two being Gabriel Hinchliffe as Adam, Sam’s well-meaning boyfriend and Thea Jo Wolfe as mum, Beverly who are both excellent.
I won’t lie: it broke me. Maybe because my daughter, like Sam, is on the cusp of everything, standing at the edge of the rest of her life. Maybe because I saw myself in Beverly – worried, loving too much, and never quite knowing when to shut up and listen. This show gets that. It got me (and my girl) – now grab yours and go see it – and bring tissues. Lots of them.
The Mad Ones, The Other Palace https://theotherpalace.co.uk/the-mad-ones/
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