As Dora Gee prepares to reprise the leading role in The Mad Ones at The Other Palace, she speaks to The Theatre Playbook about “the easiest decision” she’s ever made, acting acrobatics and why she’s ready to take London by storm.
After making its hugely successful debut in Birmingham in 2024, The Mad Ones arrives in London this week with a four-week run set for The Other Palace.
Making the same journey is the pop musical’s star Dora Gee, who is reprising her leading role as Samantha.
“I mean, it was the easiest decision I’ve ever made,” she tells The Theatre Playbook about accompanying the show to the capital. “I was so excited when they asked if I would carry on and go to London because I loved the show. I would have done it if we were doing it in the middle of nowhere for peanuts, but to take it to London for the first time is just the most exciting feeling. I feel so lucky.”
The show introduces 18-year-old Samantha Brown (Gee) who, caught between a yearning for the unknown and feeling bound by expectation, is transported back to a time to relive her high school senior year and is reunited with the three people who were her life before her world fell apart: Sam’s well-intentioned helicopter mother, Bev, her high school sweetheart boyfriend, Adam, and her painfully alive best friend, Kelly, who haunts her.
Courtney Stapleton plays Kelly, Gabriel Hinchliffe is Adam and Thea-Jo Wolfe is Beverly, with Eliza Bowden as Swing. Emily Susanne Lloyd directs the show based on book and lyrics by Kait Kerrigan and music from Bree Loudermilk.
The creative team also includes musical director Callum Thompson, choreographer Lauren Stroud, set & costume designer Reuben Speed, lighting designer Joanne Marshall, lead producers Samantha Creswick and Electric Press Productions, and creative producers James Edge and West End Best Friend Productions.
When the show opens, we meet Sam at a “super emotionally heightened” point in her life where she’s trying to decide what to do after high school, Gee says, but she didn’t have the senior year that she wanted after the devastating loss of her best friend Kelly.
“But throughout her time as a teenager and high schooler, she’s had three different people pulling her in three different directions,” the actor explains. “Her boyfriend Adam just wants to stay in their town, work at his dad’s tyre shop and have Sam as his wife. And that’s his perfect life.
“Her mum really wants her to go to Harvard because she’s really smart. She’s got all this potential and she wants her to live up to that. And then you’ve got Kelly, who is just like, ‘Let’s just go on a road trip and see what happens. We don’t need to plan anything. Let’s just go have fun, be free, be wild.’
“Now that Kelly’s gone, Sam is like, ‘I just don’t know what to. I don’t know which way to turn.’ So we meet her at a point where she’s super emotionally heightened and trying to make the most important decision of her life so far. That’s kind of what we’re exploring throughout the entire show.”
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London-based Gee’s enthusiasm to take up the part on The Other Palace stage comes despite her acknowledgement that it’s a challenging role. She is on stage for almost the entire duration, save for a quick change here or a stage direction there. “But I have always loved a challenge,” she says. “I’ve always liked to take on something quite difficult and prove to myself that I can do it.
“But it’s not only a vocal challenge. because it’s almost a sung-through show and Sam doesn’t really stop. There’s two songs that she doesn’t sing in. It’s also an acting challenge because it’s such a heavy show and you have to go from such extremes of her dreamland scenarios of what she wants to happen that are funny and you get to play those playful moments, and then you also have to take it to the other extreme of her dealing with the grief of losing her best friend and sit with how heavy that is. So it’s proper acting acrobatics, which is quite fun.”
Gee praises the way the show is written, which makes it “so easy” for her to get into character. “I just have to feel it, just be in the moment and just be present and feel the emotions,” she notes. “It’s tiring, but it’s also so rewarding because it’s such a beautiful story and it doesn’t end on a super sad dramatic note either. But the hardest part is not crying too early.”
And she is now excited for London audiences to get to see The Mad Ones.
“I’m excited for the show to reach a bigger audience because I think it deserves it. It’s such a beautifully written show and it deserves to have that London audience,” she says. “I also think we’re going to take it a step up. I know I will as a performer. My Samantha Brown this time is going be a lot more nuanced because also I’m not going to spend a load of time learning all of that material. I’m spending my time really getting into her head so that I can do a more nuanced and detailed performance that will hopefully resonate with people a bit more.”
The arrival of The Mad Ones in London also marks Gee’s capital debut. She did take part in one performance when she was a child, “but it doesn’t count,” she jokes.
She is hopeful, however, that this move will now be a “step up” for the actor, who is on the fast track to stardom after graduating from drama school in 2020.
“I’ve definitely worked my way up step by step,” she says. “So I feel like this has come at a really good time for me because, to be honest, if it had come any earlier in my career, I don’t think I would have been ready.
“You come out of drama school match fit but you learn so much on the job. You learn technical aspects in drama school, but there’s just so much that you learn from working that you can’t learn at drama school, and it’s just come a point where I’m really ready for it. I’m hungry for it.”
As the lead of The Mad Ones, Gee does feel “a lot” of pressure, “but then I would also feel that if I was not the lead. It’s important that everyone feels a sense of responsibility and pride for the show because you don’t want to be complacent.”
For audiences coming to see the show when it opens this Wednesday, May 7, she promises “gorgeous songs,” a story about female friendship and “a little bit of sadness, so bring tissues, but you won’t leave feeling distraught. You will feel uplifted, I promise.”
The Mad Ones plays The Other Palace from May 7 – June 1. Tickets: The Mad Ones