![]() ![]() It’s a curious fact that the original story came out in 1886, only two years before the Jack the Ripper murders. This is the third most interpreted literary character of all time, after Dracula and Sherlock Holmes Essentially, the Scottish writer created a key to help unlock the mysteries of the ever-conflicted Englishman. Or, for a most instantaneous theatrical version, just sit and watch a group of suited city boys downing pints on Friday night before they turn into hissy red-eyed hooligans you do not want to meet on the tube. Higson points out that it’s the third most interpreted literary character of all time, after Dracula and Sherlock Holmes, which are intriguingly from the same decade.Īnd you only have to flick through the newspaper to find modern day Jekyll/Hyde dichotomies: from paedo politicians to our dear pig-frotting leader. Stevenson actually burnt his first, more realistic version of the story, opting instead to create a flexible myth that allows readers, and re-writers like Higson, to stretch the text so it can fit all sorts of interpretations.Īnd arguably, this is why such a thin tome has had such as a profound and lasting effect on our culture. Like the book though, the new TV show uses the device of transformation as an allegory about the internal conflicts found in people and society rather than trying to investigate actual conditions like dissociative identity disorder or schizophrenia. Higson defends his choice of dumping that version to go with the grandson instead, saying: “The problem with the book is that you can read it in one sitting and if we’d done a straight adaptation that would have been episode one then we’d have had nine episodes where the central character was dead and everyone would be sitting around getting on with their lives.” The original novella saw the priggish Dr Jekyll metamorphosing into the unhinged Hyde after experimenting on himself with a serum as he tried to repress his baser urges once and for all. It’s always interesting to see how different writers interpret Stevenson’s richly allegorical tale of the English gent with the dark side. Higson says: “We very much wanted to be based in London, to use as much of it as we could, but it’s very hard filming in London, very hard finding any bits that you can still use.” But the production team found it hard to scout enough from that era still in existence, which meant using sets and CGI as well as locations outside the capital like Chatham Docks and Rochester. Real locations help create the aesthetic with Eltham Palace, Fitzroy Square and Senate House all used well. London looks fantastic in the show – in both senses of the word, as it mixes smoggy Victoriana with stylised 1930s modernism. He’s not terribly beastly for the most part with the altar-ego here emerging at times of stress, anger and arousal (it is a fairly frisky interpretation), so he’s really closer to a character like the Incredible Hulk. ![]() Tom Bateman plays the lead(s) and keeps it simple: repressed and tight-lipped as Robert Jekyll (the grandson of Robert Louis Stevenson’s original Henry) then nostrils aflare and eyebrows arched when he turns into Hyde. If Higson waters down the central character to cram everything else in, that’s okay - we know Jekyll and Hyde well enough already. I’m just putting in all the stuff I love.”īasically, ITV have finally found their answer to Doctor Who I wanted to do my versions of all those great monsters: Frankenstein, Dracula, the wolfman, zombies, the mummy. “It’s got that very Britishness at its core: set in the 1930s so it’s got the period drama that people love… but what I felt was really fun was to take that and fill it full of mad monsters and crazy acting.”īesides London's Victorian fantasy writers, Higson takes a cue from Hollywood too: “One of the reasons I set the show in the 1930s was that it was the golden age of Universal horror movies. "I've described it as Downton Abbey with monsters,” says Higson who wrote and helps produce the show.
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