It’s been a while since I wrote a first impressions review for Cultured Vultures, but I think a show has finally come along that warrants a closer look. ITV’s Jekyll & Hyde is a strange beast, and in many ways its overall quality lines up oddly with the dichotomy of the short novel on which it is based. Some of it is good, some not so good.
So how is it different from every other adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s famous Victorian work? This story follows Robert Jekyll, the grandson of the original Henry Jekyll, as he travels from Ceylon to 1930s London to find out about his biological grandfather. He’s got a strange medical condition that requires him to take pills to suppress, and he’s hopelessly emotionally repressed in that way only British men can be.
There’s also his doting adoptive parents in Ceylon and a hilariously prim young lady of money who looks to be a love interest. Also, did I mention Richard E. Grant is in this? Grant, of Withnail and I fame, might just be the wild card to take Jekyll & Hyde from bland to engrossing. Right now though, it’s too early to tell. Let me explain.
See, while Jekyll & Hyde looks really nice, with all its period costumes and undercurrent of supernatural menace, there’s something not quite right about it. Maybe it’s the jarring moments of exposition, the occasionally cringe worthy line of dialogue or the performances that don’t quite pop. There are some pieces here that don’t quite fit, and since the first episode is so by the numbers, it’s actually a little distracting.
That’s where Richard E. Grant comes in. A veteran of the big and small screen, Grant brings a much needed air of credibility to affairs with his grouchy secret service boss. Did I mention that? Grant plays the boss of a supernatural secret agency under the British government. In his own words, they deal with ‘monsters’, which are very real, and Robert Jekyll has just jumped to the top of their watch list.
We’ve seen so many adaptations of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde at this point that many people will approach another one with scepticism. ITV’s new spin clearly wants to be a period superhero show. Think The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, superheroes with a supernatural gothic vibe to them. If that’s where this is going then I’m down.
A teaser hinting at what’s to come in future episodes partially confirms this direction. There are other strange creatures on the way, and members of Grant’s secret agency even mention the likes of zombies, vampires and shape shifters in the opening episode.
Despite a fairly solid performance, Tom Bateman’s Robert Jekyll (and Hyde) might be the thing that’s weighing the first episode down somewhat. He’s given so little character, apart from his strange affliction, that it’s hard to really root for him early on. In fact it wasn’t until Grant’s secret agents showed up that there was anyone to route for at all. Bateman does a good nervous British, guy but Hugh Grant had already done that to death by the end of Notting Hill.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKPUv6_-2ZA
What we’re all waiting for, of course, is his transformation into Hyde. Admittedly, when it finally happens, it’s obvious Bateman has got the mannerisms down, but he might be playing it just a little over the top. Swaggering around a London drinking hall like a caddish aristocratic anarchist didn’t quite work for me. Maybe it was the direction, or possibly the script, but I’m not quite sold on what this version of Hyde wants.
Having said that, the mystery of Robert Jekyll’s Victorian grandfather and World War One era father is suitably intriguing. Again there’s an air of otherworldly gothic secrets to this plot thread, which looks to be what this show does best.
Frankly, the sooner Jekyll gets sucked into the orbit of Grant’s MIO (Military Intelligence Other, in case you were interested), the better. It just feels like there are better, more interesting stories to tell down that road. The longer we stay on the roundabout of Jekyll’s overbaked Britishness, the less likely I am to keep watching.
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