Theatre Review: Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde at The Alhambra Theatre

Reviving the stage show of Robert Louis Stevenson’s celebrated novella, Consortium Theatre bring the gothic underworld to Bradford where Leo Owen caught the show

LIBERAL artistic licence is taken by adapter David Edgar, adding backstories that include countryside visits to Jekyll’s (Phil Daniels) sister Katherine (Polly Frame), mourning for a deceased father and a maid servant (Grace Hogg-Robinson) escaping an abusive father.

Opening with Katherine’s children, Charles (Anyebe Godwin) and Lucy (Rosie Abraham), rehearsing a play that closely mirrors Jekyll’s story, Edgar’s adaptation blatantly signposts plot twists for the audience throughout with later double visions and a thematic child’s spinning top.

Actors play multiple roles as two Victorian gentlemen overlooking the main stage on an upper walkway switch from narrators to characters in action. Simon Higlett’s set and costume design is undoubtedly the show’s strength, creating an appropriately labyrinthine and murky atmosphere with the walkway physically representing the duality of the highs and lows of Victorian society. A red glowing door stage right and a cream one on the opposite side further symbolise the good and evil lurking within.

However, the addition of musical interludes, by Director Kate Saxton are decidedly odd and further disrupt the play’s fluency. Hogg-Robinson repeatedly reprises Hyde’s song “Don’t tickle teddy in the forest”, creating a sinister/uneasy feeling, representing loss of childhood and innocence.

As Hyde, Daniels has a thicker Scottish accent/dialect, stoops and is clearly taking inspiration from Father Ted’s colleague Father Jack, drunkenly slurring and singing. Audience members audibly snigger as Hyde supposedly brutally kills the MP, Sir Danvers Carew whilst one exclaims “My God!” (mirroring the initial shocked reactions of Victorian readers).

While Edgar’s interest in the original novella’s historical/social context may be useful for those studying the story as a set text, it’s clunkily shoe-horned in with the maid’s vomiting, implying illegitimate pregnancy and Stevenson’s overall moral forced. Unlike its abbreviated title, this mish-mash of a show is undoubtedly a “strange case”.

Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde shows in The Alhambra 17-21 April before continuing its UK tour:

https://touringconsortium.co.uk/show/jekyll-and-hyde/