Ker-pow! A comic book take on Jekyll and Hyde
We’ve all encountered a Jekyll and Hyde character: someone who’s all sunny one moment, a beetroot-faced bully the next. The idiom is everyday, its origin lies in the
novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and
Mr Hyde published in 1886 by Robert Louis Stevenson. Now ITV is the latest to draw inspiration from literature’s original split personality in its own
Jekyll and Hyde (ITV, Sunday), a cartoonish, CGI-fuelled extravaganza.
Like Frankenstein before it, this is the kind of gothic story that can be adapted in two very different ways. You can either take it as a dark allegory of man’s suppressed, atavistic urges. Or you can treat it like a great big Hallowe’en party of ghouls and monsters and eye-popping physical transformation. Airing in the familyfriendly slot of 6.30pm, ITV has very much gone for the latter approach, with a result that is more Harry Potter than Sherlock Holmes.
In an inventive twist on the original, the drama, conceived by Fast Show creator Charlie Higson, features the grandson of the original doctor. This blameless young Dr Jekyll (Tom Bateman) is living with a foster family in Ceylon in blithe ignorance of his monstrous roots. Except that when put under pressure, he gets the odd burst of superhuman strength and an urge to swap vaccinating schoolgirls for stamping on their heads. Cue a letter from a London lawyer seeking to settle the Hyde family estate, Max Utterson (Christian McKay), who summons our anti-hero to the city.
There was a comic book-like aesthetic. We saw Dr Jekyll disembark in a London of misty docksides, swoon over a crimson-lipped love interest, Lily (Stephanie Hyam), and slip helplessly into his alter ego for merry brawls that were only missing the word “pow!” in a speech bubble. The violence was victimless, the sexy scenes sexless. This was knowingly kitsch melodrama.
Last night’s episode reached its bombastic best as Dr Jekyll made his first full transition into Mr Hyde. Lacking the pills he usually guzzled to control his “condition”, the meek young doctor learned about the death of his family and promptly had a bit of a Jeremy Clarkson moment. The veins throbbed in his temple, he gave a mighty roar and the next thing you knew, he had gone from lumbering milksop into muscle-bound brute. Bateman pulled this feat off with a superb, glittery-eyed swagger.
Last night’s opener built up enough momentum to bode well for a lively run through the gloomy autumn evenings. It’s all good family fun, though older viewers might yearn for something a bit more gothic, a bit less comic book.
The award for television’s most convenient rain shower goes to the one in last night’s Downton
Abbey (ITV Sunday) – the sixth episode in this final series. Just as Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) was walking home from a London night out with toothsome racing car driver Henry Talbot (Matthew Goode), a downpour materialised. It was less like weather, more like someone turned on a power shower. In the same way that banks can become too big to fail, so historical dramas can become too successful to care if they indulge in cliché.
The two attractive young people sheltered from the rain. The tall, dark handsome man said he was falling in love with the thin, glamorous, reserved woman. They kissed. The end? It can’t be, there’s another two episodes and a Christmas special left to go: I predict a few more pit stops for this semi-convincing romance.
Happily, there was much to enjoy elsewhere, as a fundraising open day at Downton allowed for some light, ironic banter. Beetle-browed butler Carson (Jim Carter) saw a straight line between letting in members of the public and “a guillotine in Trafalgar Square”, while the Dowager Countess (Maggie Smith) was in a state of magnificent dudgeon, scattering the proletariat before her like chickens.
The Earl (Hugh Bonneville), meanwhile, showed what convalescence looked like a world away from an NHS ward. Propped up in bed on velvet cushions, with nothing to do but pick at food from a tray and patronise his wife, he made a stomach ulcer seem like a nice cruise.
The only thing that disturbed the invalid’s peace was an impertinent young boy who had broken free from his parents at the open day. The public, it transpired, had turned out in droves, suggesting the timeless appeal of gawping at bickering, beautifully dressed aristocrats.