Starring David Tennant, Michael Gambon, Elisabeth Moss and Gabriel Byrne, Mad to Be Normal is the story of controversial Scottish psychiatrist, R.D. Laing and the infamous anti-psychiatry experiment he ran at Kingsley Hall a medication-free sanctuary which made headlines around the world. It also made him an international celebrity. In Santa Monica, 4,000 people turned out to see him perform a lecture, a week after Bob Dylan had pulled in the same number. 

During the 1960s and 1970s, Laing performed various daring experiments on people who were diagnosed as mentally disturbed. His revolutionary methods involved experimenting with LSD on his patients and practicing a form of self- healing known as metanoia, causing outrage and controversy in the medical profession and radically changing attitudes and perceptions of mental health around the world.