Review: The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Live at Leith Theatre

A triumphant marriage of stage artistry, and screen magic.

📍Leith Theatre, Edinburgh
📅 Fri 25 – Sun 27 February 2022
🕖 Evenings 7.00pm
🕖 Running time: approx. 2 hour (2 intervals)
🎂 15+
👥 Director and Writer: Hope Dickson Leach
👥 Contributing Writer: Vlad Butucea
👥 Director of Photography: David Liddell
👥 Editor: Rachel Erskine
👥 Music: Hudson Mohawke
💰 By Donation
🎭 Friday 25 February:: Captioned by Louisa McDaid and Audio Described by Chris McKiddie
🎭 Sunday 27 February: BSL Interpreted Yvonne Waddell.

Gabriel Utterson (Lorn Macdonald), jobbing solicitor, and minder of the inheritances of the wealthy, has but one servant Mabel (Caroline Deyga), and wears last year’s hat. Delight at being summoned to the house of old, if somewhat estranged friend Dr Jekyll (Henry Pettigrew), turns to confusion when the great Doctor asks that he redraw his will to the benefit of the unknown Mr. Hyde. Qualms, and whatever passed for early 19th century due diligence, are pushed to one side when Jekyll introduces Utterson to Edinburgh high society in the shape of local Croesus, Sir Danvers Carew (David Hayman). Sir Danvers wants to build a great monument upon Calton Hill, and he needs a man with the gumption to oversee construction, and keep both labourers and local politicians in their place…

Hope Dickson Leach (Writer/Director) and Vlad Butucea (contributing writer), set their tale of Jekyll and Hyde around 60 years earlier than Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 manuscript, and in Edinburgh, not London. Thus relocated amidst the construction of the National Monument (or Disgrace, take your pick), and a societal schism which set the wealthy in New Town mansions, and the poor underground in the Cowgate Vaults, one might fear some dissolution of a narrative originally contained in a slim novella. The result is quite to the contrary.

When Hyde‘s psychopathic self-indulgence crashes in upon Utterson’s orderly, and self-righteous world, he draws the lawyer’s terrified gaze down into the gothic streets which housed Burke and Hare, a world in which life is cheap, and conducted under the neglectful sufferance of the powerful. I dare to suggest that such a gothic tale is far more at home amidst the shadows of Georgian Edinburgh, than Victorian London.

Macdonald is on fabulous form, his Utterson possessed of noble instincts, but unquenchable ambition. Pettigrew’s Jekyll is a charming thrill-seeker of ambivalent morality, his Hyde a knowing slave to humanity’s basest instincts. Hyde isn’t the only malevolence benighting the lives of the dispensable, far from it. Sir Danvers — a grotesque tour-de-force from Hayman — works them to injury and death at his brewery The Council — embodied by Cheshire grinned Councillor Begg (Tam Dean Burn) — wants to wipe their stain from the nation’s capital by means of high explosive: evacuation optional. Even Police Inspector Hay (Ali Watt) seems to think the ends of justice terminate somewhere just below the middle-classes.

Utterson‘s ideals should place him in conflict with all of the above, but with reputation and power to lose, what will he choose?

Let’s deal with the superlatives first: this is one of the most magnificent episodes in Scottish performing arts this century. Walking into the grounds of the beautiful Leith Theatre, the audience passes through the film sets prepared for the night’s cinematic entertainment. The columnated exterior is strewn with straw, and bathed in lights, transformed from exterior wall, to period Edinburgh thoroughfare. Inside, the magnificent old theatre’s marble halls, and mosaic floors are now luxurious dining rooms, and stately offices, attended by camera rails, lights, and the anticipation of action.

The main auditorium of Leith Theatre, for those who’ve not had the pleasure, is absolutely splendid, its arched, partially glazed ceiling, hovering above a single sweeping balcony, and a generous ground floor. A gift from the people of Edinburgh to those of Leith in 1932, Leith Theatre was abandoned 1988, but has been waking from slumber since 2017, thanks to years of tireless work by the community powered Leith Theatre Trust. It should be one of the jewels in Edinburgh’s performing arts crown, a purpose built space prettier than the Queen’s Hall, and perfectly placed to benefit from Leith’s vibrant & creative populace. Even without heating, and semi-derelict, or perhaps a little because of this, it was the perfect venue for an utterly engrossing experience.

A co-production between National Theatre of Scotland, and SELKIE Productions, every inch of the grand old space had been put to work. The audience filling the stalls are flanked by the tents of motion picture equipment supplier No Drama, and the stud walls containing yet further sets. The front of house staff are all costumed in period garb, and set at strategic points amidst the seating? Bars serving bespoke cocktails, and other refreshments. The seating? Plush and comfortable, and not as tight on leg-room than some balcony seating found elsewhere in the city.

Suffice to say The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Live at Leith Theatre was a magical experience before the film/live performance even began.

For the show itself, projected in beautifully atmospheric black & white upon a grand screen set upon the stage, I have nothing but praise. A gripping, and often dark psychological thriller, a union of David Lynch and Tod Browning, it pays homage to masters of the unsettling and horrific new, and old. Still, Dickson Leach, shows a sure hand with the comedy, and lighter touches needed to cast the nefarious further into the shadows. The characters of her Edinburgh are fleshed out human beings, capable of growth, and of meaningful decisions. Redemption, one feels, is always on offer to any willing to make the necessary sacrifice. Ditto damnation.

David Liddell’s photography is beautiful, Hudson Erskine’s soundtrack a wonderfully strange accompaniment. The entire show makes for fine theatre, and exciting cinema.

It’s impossible to say precisely why it’s so thrilling to know a film is being made live in the theatre: in the corridors and sets arrayed around and within the auditorium, but it unquestionably is.

Perhaps it has some of the fascination of watching a tightrope walker, simultaneously captivated by consummate skill and perpetually imminent risk of disaster. Still, that will still be present in cinemas around the country tonight (the 27th) — you can go, if you buy a ticket NOW — so what’s so special about being in the building where it’s happening?

Borrowed adrenaline perhaps? Knowing that you’re never more than metres away from actors and crew engaged in an audacious conspiracy to make live cinema? Whatever it is, our National Theatre should do more of it, because done as well as this, it creates an event worth travelling for, worth crossing borders for, it makes for a truly encompassing night of theatre.

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Live at Leith Theatre is a fine piece of work, set precisely where it should be in every sense.

For tickets, and more information on this production, please click here.

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde will play live to cinemas across the UK on the 27th February, to find your nearest screening, click here.