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Dr. May Wright (often referred to by the media as "Mad May") is a fictional character from the

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soap opera A soap opera, or ''soap'' for short, is a typically long-running radio or television serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term "soap opera" originated from radio dramas originally being sponsored ...

EastEnders ''EastEnders'' is a Television in the United Kingdom, British soap opera created by Julia Smith (producer), Julia Smith and Tony Holland which has been broadcast on BBC One since February 1985. Set in the fictional borough of Walford in the Ea ...

'', played by

Amanda Drew Amanda Drew (born 12 December 1969) is an English actress with extensive credits in theatre, television and film. Biography One of four children, Drew was born in Boston, Lincolnshire. Drew's mother was a nurse and her father was a vicar. When ...

. May appears in the series between 25 September 2006 and 25 June 2007, and again between 6 and 18 June 2008, when she is

killed off The killing off of a character is a device in fiction, whereby a character dies, but the story continues. The term, frequently applied to television, film, video game, anime, manga and chronological series, often denotes an untimely or unexpect ...

. Her storylines include the breakdown of her marriage to Rob Minter ( Stuart Laing) and attempted kidnap of

Summer Swann The following is a list of characters that first appeared in the BBC soap opera ''EastEnders'' in 2007, by order of first appearance. A new family were introduced in this year, with Zainab Masood, Masood Ahmed, Shabnam Masood and Tamwar Mas ...

, daughter of Rob and

Dawn Swann Dawn Swann is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera ''EastEnders'', played by Kara Tointon, who first appeared on 26 September 2005. It was reported on 26 March 2009 that Tointon and co-star Ricky Groves, who plays Garry Hobbs, would ...

(

Kara Tointon Kara Louise Tointon (born 5 August 1983) is an English actress, known for portraying the role of Dawn Swann in the BBC soap opera ''EastEnders''. In 2010, she won the BBC competition series ''Strictly Come Dancing'', and in 2015, she appeared as ...

), all of which led to her eventual suicide when she causes a gas explosion.

Storylines

2006–2007

May arrives in

Walford Walford is a fictional borough of east London in the BBC soap opera ''EastEnders''. It is the primary setting for the soap. ''EastEnders'' is filmed at Borehamwood in Hertfordshire, towards the north-west of London. Much of the location work i ...

, taking over from Oliver Cousins ( Tom Ellis) as GP. Several weeks later, it is revealed she is married to Rob Minter ( Stuart Laing) who is dating

(

). May and Rob are separated when Rob starts dating Dawn but he ends it when May asks him to give their marriage another go and they are trying for a baby by

IVF In vitro fertilisation (IVF) is a process of fertilisation where an egg is combined with sperm in vitro ("in glass"). The process involves monitoring and stimulating an individual's ovulatory process, removing an ovum or ova (egg or eggs) f ...

. May reveals she once miscarried at six weeks before learning that Dawn is expecting Rob's baby and that her fertility treatment has been unsuccessful. The doctor tells May that she is not ovulating and therefore unlikely to conceive. Desperate for Rob's baby, May offers Dawn £10,000 to have the baby and allow her to raise her and Dawn agrees. However, May and Rob plan to con Dawn by claiming he loves her and suggest they raise the baby together. Rob leaves May for real, filing for divorce when her behaviour becomes increasingly erratic and irrational. May reacts by taking pills intended for patients but when challenged, accuses nurse

Naomi Julien Naomi Julien is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera ''EastEnders'', portrayed by Petra Letang. She first appeared in the show in the episode broadcast on 15 August 2005. Her storylines include a relationship with established character ...

(

Petra Letang Petra Letang (born 4 May 1979 in Plaistow, London, England) is a British actress, probably best known for her role as Naomi Julien in the BBC soap opera '' EastEnders'' and Adele Effanga in '' Holby City''. Biography Letang grew up in east L ...

) of stealing the pills and forces her to leave the Square. May seduces Rob and they reconcile. Lulling Dawn into a false sense of security, Rob proposes and she accepts. He takes her to his parents' house, where May is waiting. Rob restrains Dawn while May drugs her and threatens to perform a caesarean if Dawn does not co-operate. Dawn manages to escape, returning to the Square but doesn't stay as she knows Rob will come looking for her and leaves for the Cotswolds. However, she goes into labour on the tube and gives birth to a baby girl, naming her daughter,

Summer Summer is the hottest of the four temperate seasons, occurring after spring and before autumn. At or centred on the summer solstice, the earliest sunrise and latest sunset occurs, daylight hours are longest and dark hours are shortest, wit ...

. Dawn tells the hospital not to admit Rob but May tells the hospital staff that she is Dawn's GP and wants to leave a card for her, planning to take Summer but Dawn wakes up. May asks Dawn to let her take the baby, doubling her original offer, but Dawn refuses so May leaves alone. May later visits Dawn, asking to see Summer and offering her the toys and baby clothes she had collected during Dawn's pregnancy. Dawn calls the police and allows May to see Summer until the police arrive. She is arrested on suspicion of kidnap.

2008

May returns, using a false name, and hires Dawn's fiance,

Jase Dyer Jase Dyer is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera ''EastEnders'', played by Stephen Lord between 19 July 2007 to 29 August 2008. The character and his casting was announced on the mid-2007 on June. Lord, in his first role, began filming ...

(

Stephen Lord Stephen Lord (born 1 October 1971) is an English actor, known for playing Jase Dyer in the BBC soap opera ''EastEnders'' from 2007 to 2008 and Dominic Meak in the Channel 4 comedy drama series, '' Shameless'', between 2012 and 2013. In 2021, ...

), to decorate her house. She asks him about Summer and he asks if she will babysit Summer to which she agrees. On the day she is supposed to babysit, Jase arrives alone, claiming Summer has teething problems and he has to leave her with Dawn. May is so distraught that she runs out of the house in tears. The next day, Jase finds May unconscious with an empty vodka bottle. She explains to him that she lost her baby but she is with another family. Jase says she needs to see her child. May goes to Jase and Dawn's house with a gift for Summer. When May is alone with Summer, she whispers goodbye to her and says she loves her. May then decides that Dawn and Jase aren't coping as parents. Dawn gets back and May sneaks out. She returns on Summer's birthday, when she confronts and scares Dawn, infiltrates the Millers' home and knocks Dawn's brother

Mickey Miller Mickey Miller is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera ''EastEnders'', played by Joe Swash. He made his first appearance on 15 April 2003. Introduced as a guest character, Mickey proved popular and was turned into a regular by executive p ...

(

Joe Swash Joseph Adam Swash is an English actor and television presenter, best known for his role of Mickey Miller in the BBC One soap opera ''EastEnders'' and various presenting roles with ITV2. He won the eighth series of '' I'm a Celebrity...Get Me ...

) out with a crowbar. She locks herself, Dawn and Summer in a bedroom, breaking down and confessing she and Rob are now divorced, he is engaged to someone else and they are expecting a baby, and the police and medical authorities decided not to press charges against May, realising she was ill. She was struck off and sectioned, spending time in a psychiatric hospital. She didn't take her treatment seriously, telling the doctors what they wanted to hear so she would be released. Dawn tries to leave but May grabs her and tears

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in her foot, giving Dawn medical advice as a form of

taunting A taunt is a battle cry, sarcastic remark, gesture, or insult intended to demoralize the recipient, or to anger them and encourage reactionary behaviors without thinking. Taunting can exist as a form of social competition to gain control of the tar ...

, continuing on from an earlier taunt claiming that Dawn cannot look after Summer properly, after discovering she applied fake suntan lotion to her for a baby beauty contest. This leads her to further taunt Dawn, by implying that she will possibly get a

tattoo A tattoo is a form of body modification made by inserting tattoo ink, dyes, and/or pigments, either indelible or temporary, into the dermis layer of the skin to form a design. Tattoo artists create these designs using several Process of tatt ...

for Summer's 18th birthday. May grabs Summer, calling her Sophie, and begins packing Summer's things, but Dawn distracts her and Mickey throws her out of the bedroom, locking the door after her. May tries to smash the door down with the crowbar, but finding this impossible, she goes downstairs and opens the music box she had brought for Summer. She turns on the gas, lights a cigarette causing an explosion and instantly dies.

Creation and development

Creation

In preparing for her role as May, Amanda Drew met a female GP, to learn the structure of May's daily routine. She read up on

, consulting people who had undergone the procedure to gain insight into May's state of mind.

Personality

May's "deranged" personality earned her the nickname "Mad May" from the media. Amanda described the role as "a gift of a role for any actor because of her complexity." Commenting on the initial development of May's personality and motivations, Amanda explained: "When I initially met the producer and the storyline editor, we worked on May's characteristics and we created a 'super objective' for her - to fix things; which is why she became a doctor. She wants to help people and make everything right. So, in her personal life, if her 'super objective' is to fix things, then if a situation occurs where she can take control and sort it out, she will. But obviously under the influence of this emotional distress, she's following her 'super objective' to such a degree that she's acting out of all reason, away from her normal rational self and choosing to adopt the love child of her husband and his mistress. Anyone in their right mind would say 'that's crazy, that's never going to work'. Because of where she was when this situation hit her, those are the choices she made at the time. Unfortunately, because she is a driven woman, instead of doing a U-turn, she sets her sights on something and will pursue it."

"Summergate"

Discussing her early storyline, in which May and Rob conspired to steal Dawn's baby, Drew stated that the character's relationship with her husband was "fairly ambiguous", commenting that; "it was even difficult for us as actors to decide how clear it was going to come across." In May 2007, the ending of the storyline was rewritten due to similarities to the

disappearance of Madeleine McCann Madeleine Beth McCann (born 12 May 2003) is a British missing person who disappeared from her bed in a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, on the evening of 3 May 2007, at the age of 3. ''The Daily Telegraph'' described the disappeara ...

on 3 May. In the original scripts, May would abduct Dawn's baby soon after the birth but the plot was pulled, releasing a statement saying: "''EastEnders'' has made the decision to substantially rewrite the storyline featuring Dawn Swann and Dr May Wright due to events surrounding the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. In the current circumstances it was felt any storyline including a child abduction would be inappropriate and could cause distress to our viewers." Drew expressed some dissatisfaction with the rewrite, stating that; "I think the ending that was originally planned was probably more shocking and perhaps more dramatically engaging", while conceding that "there was a part of me that was relieved on a personal level that I wouldn't be walking around the streets of London with people heckling me".

Return

Of her return to ''EastEnders'', Drew stated: "I'm so excited to be playing her again. It'd be a shame to give too much away, but she has changed in many ways." Executive producer

Diederick Santer Diederick Santer (born 3 July 1969) is a British television producer and is best known for his work on the popular BBC television soap opera ''EastEnders'', a post which he assumed on 23 October 2006 and left on 1 March 2010. He was Chief Exec ...

said: "It's great to have Amanda back. May is a hugely popular character. I'm sure viewers will be keen to see what she gets up to and how she's changed." Drew has discussed how the change in May since her absence was reflected in the character's appearance, explaining: "she used to be very professionally turned out and well-dressed when working as a GP. The May we now see is very different. She is dowdy and I don’t think she has had a haircut for ages. She doesn’t seem to be caring for her appearance and it shows." She deemed her return storyline: "Fantastic, very exciting and I think the writers have really brought out the complexity of May. They understand her well and have written her character in a rounded way."

Reception

Kevin O'Sullivan, writing for the ''

Sunday Mirror The ''Sunday Mirror'' is the Sunday sister paper of the ''Daily Mirror''. It began life in 1915 as the ''Sunday Pictorial'' and was renamed the ''Sunday Mirror'' in 1963. In 2016 it had an average weekly circulation of 620,861, dropping marke ...

'', was critical of Drew's performance as May. Discussing the character's exit, he deemed that Drew's "extreme over-acting" and "OTT guttural sobbing turned manic May into a comical, rather than frightening character." ''

Radio Times ''Radio Times'' (currently styled as ''RadioTimes'') is a British weekly listings magazine devoted to television and radio programme schedules, with other features such as interviews, film reviews and lifestyle items. Founded in May 1923 by J ...

'' included May on their feature on bunny boilers. Describing her they stated: "A prime example of a sexist stereotype: a woman driven beyond distraction by her frustrated desire to be a mother."

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wright, May EastEnders characters Fictional physicians Fictional criminals in soap operas Fictional con artists Fictional female doctors Television characters introduced in 2006 Fictional characters with psychiatric disorders Fictional suicides Female villains Female characters in television Fictional stalkers