Jekyll and Hyde – Royal Lyceum Theatre

This adaptation by Gary McNair of Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel, is keen to point to its source’s Edinburgh roots, though mostly through the programme and the lead (and only) actor’s Scottish accent. Unlike some recent productions of Great Expectations or Dracula however, it stops short of relocating the story to Scotland.

But even the medium of a play represents a coming home of sorts: this story began with the true tale of furniture-maker and lock-breaker Deacon Brodie, about whom Louis Stevenson first co-wrote a play entitled Deacon Brodie, or The Double Life, though it was his later retooling of the idea of duality into the novella Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde which would find lasting success.

The story is well-known (spoilers) for its crucial dual role, which lead at least one actor to being suspected of being Jack The Ripper, so convincing was he in the part. Here this is further emphasised by every other role also being played by Forbes Masson, who ably differentiates the characters through body-language and positioning, juggling humour and drama as well he does the odd microphone and hat during conversations.

He is aided by stage designer Max Jones’s multi-tiered set which, as directed by Michael Fentiman, gives Masson space to move around, on and over, according to the needs of the story, with composer and sound designer Richard Hammarton’s work giving us the necessary transitions into the scary parts where Stevenson and McNair’s words are no longer enough.

Less successful is the work of Lighting Designer Richard Howell, which is effective in conjuring up a creepy door in LED, and adding depth and texture to the set and settings through the use of trusses either side of the stage, but less so in its adherence to the new fashion in modern mainstream horror theatre (2.22: A Ghost Story is another recent example) to just line the proscenium arch with LEDs and set them off in the audience’s faces every ten minutes.

Leaving aside the decision someone somewhere has apparently made to exclude photosensitive epileptics from supernatural theatre, it suggests someone felt the drama of the story needed shoring up. 2.22, for example, was a closed room supernatural drama which was transformed into a “horror play” by having lights flashing and loud noises every ten minutes (justified by being “fox noises” outside the building).

At one act, Jekyll and Hyde was shorter and therefore less structurally reliant on these moments to keep the audience engaged before the big pay-off at the end, but that doesn’t make its reliance on them better, only more unnecessary. The need they felt to bring up several times in the show (and once more in the program) the fact everyone knows the big twist going in suggests more insecurity than excitement about this being a well-known classic, as well as a misunderstanding of how suspense works, as famously illustrated by Alfred Hitchcock in his conversation with Francois Truffaut. Having information about a story isn’t a problem, that’s why people are coming to your show. Using information the audience has and the characters lack should be a source of tension, not something to avoid and replace with the theatrical equivalent to a jump-scare. This is not to say, of course, that all technology is evil and wrong, only to question the reliance on something sudden rather than organic, and something which lessens tension in its aftermath rather than building it.

Having said that, for anyone not sensitive to sudden lights, this will no doubt be a minor aspect of this well-directed, well-written and well-acted production of a classic tale which tells its tale economically and with good use of both humour and fear.

Jekyll and Hyde is running at the Lyceum until the 27th January. Tickets can be found at: https://lyceum.org.uk/events/jekyll-and-hyde#dates-and-times

Reviewer: Oliver Giggins

Reviewed: 16th January 2024

North West End UK Rating: