Review - Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde - People's Theatre

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde 

People's Theatre

22nd October, 2024

Written by David Edgar

Directed by Andy Aiken and Helen Doyle

This month's offering from The People's Theatre is a bit of ghoulish Victorian melodrama - an adaptation by David Edgar of R L Stevenson's Strange Tale of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. And a strange tale it is indeed. 

Dr Edward Henry Jekyll is a scientist with a growing reputation. He is invited to speak at learned symposiums, and holds earnest discussions over dinner with his equally learned friends. He is a benevolent uncle, showering gifts on his niece and nephew and playing boisterous games with them. He is clearly adored by them, and loved by their mother, his sister. He is pious, and abstemious, declining to drink alcohol on a Sunday. We surely could not meet a more wholesome man? And yet, there are hints...his beloved sister sports an eye-patch, and the father he looked up to, left all his possessions to the daughter, not the son. 

So perhaps this playfulness and piety hide something darker? After all, our introduction to the play came as a conversation between one of Jekyll's esteemed friends and his nephew, who has witnessed a perturbing, violent incident outside the house of Dr Jekyll. 

And indeed it does. Jekyll is ambitious, and driven, but he is also secretive and furtive about his work, and in particular about his father's notebooks. And as we discover, there is much more to Dr Jekyll than meets the eye. Ryan Smith brings to life Jekyll's dual characters - two extremes of a personality; the upright, civilised doctor, and the grotesque, violent alter ego, Mr Hyde. Truth be told, I didn't much like either of them. 

Under the direction of Andy Aiken and Helen Doyle, Smith somehow conveys a sense of something unwholesome in Jekyll while presenting a man of respectability and virtue. And of course Mr Hyde is the embodiment of that unwholesomeness - guttural, angry, quick to take - and give - offence. He is the antithesis of the image Jekyll shows to society. Smith's transformation from the one to the other is astonishing to see, and possibly exhausting to sustain through the play! 

Smith is ably supported by a cast whose civility and politeness towards each other is exemplary, and is in stark contrast to the brutish, carnal behaviour of Hyde. Naturally there will be no good end to this tale - the heinous crimes of Mr Hyde will be the downfall of Dr Jekyll, despite his belated attempts to bring the beast under control. It seems that the baseness of his nature is stronger than his morality. It is perhaps telling that the character who understands, and sees Jekyll best is the maid, Annie (Jenny Davison), herself a dual character, at once naive and wise, daughter of an abusive father, she recognizes something within Jekyll but is unable to articulate it convincingly. She is judged and shunned by her supposed betters and yet she, in the end brings him, tragically, to his senses. 

We should perhaps all take note and strive to keep our baser emotions under control, but not so much so as to cause an imbalance in our natures. And don't drink any suspicious looking potions this Halloween!

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde will be confronting each other at the People's Theatre until Saturday 26th October. Tickets are available here www.peoplestheatre.co.uk .

*Image by Paul Hood

Denise Sparrowhawk