Jekyll and Hyde writer: You are all scaredy cats
IT featured graphic scenes of murder and torture, an assortment of gruesome monsters and was shown hours before the 9pm watershed.
Yet despite hundreds of complaints, the writer behind the ITV teatime drama Jekyll and Hyde has defiantly branded concerned parents ‘scaredy cats’ who need to ‘grow up’. Charlie Higson said the people who had complained about Sunday’s first episode were failing to ‘get with the modern world’.
Families tuned in at 6.30pm expecting an adventure in the style of Harry Potter or Doctor Who but were greeted with scenes of violence. Protests flooded social media while the programme was still on air. By yesterday, 742 viewers had complained to Ofcom and ITV.
But Higson, 57, a father of three who starred in the comedy series The Fast Show, refused to back down. Even before the first episode, he rejected concerns, saying: ‘Some of the parents might get a little upset and some of the smaller kids but you know, f*** them.’
In a series of Twitter messages, the actor added: ‘Seems to be a veritable twitterstorm in support of Jekyll and Hyde telling scaredy cats to grow up and get with the modern world.
‘Let’s ban everything that might give children nightmares. Clowns, Santa Claus, big dogs, that dressing gown on
‘Condescending and inappropriate’
the back of the bedroom door. We can’t protect our children from being scared but we can prepare them for it by exposing them to harmless scares so they learn how to cope.’
Higson has continued to claim that he understands what appeals to children. ‘You’d think the title Jekyll and Hyde would be a clue. It’s not the Teletubbies,’ he said. ‘In my experience this is the sort of thing that kids want to watch. It’s only the parents that get upset.’
But Claude Knights, of the child protection charity Kidscape, said: ‘Concerns regarding the showing of brutal and graphic scenes long before the watershed do not point to the overprotection of children by parents out of tune with the modern world. Children do need to learn to deal with all kinds of emotions including anxiety and fear, but not in this artificially heightened and often gratuitous manner that invades their homes early on a Sunday evening.’
Nigel Huddleston, a Tory member of the Commons culture, media and sport committee, described Higson’s comments as ‘condescending’ and ‘inappropriate’. He said: ‘He’s clearly underestimating the impact of his creative output in terms of the concern it’s causing parents. I don’t doubt that lots of children would love to watch these gory, scary programmes but that doesn’t mean that they should.’