For me Jekyll & Hyde has been a long time coming.  I first heard songs from the show in 1992 and bought the original concept CD on the strength of that.  I missed the first run and was delighted to hear that UK Productions was bringing the show to Scotland as part of a UK tour pre West-End.

With Paul Nicholas in the main roles of both Dr Henry Jekyll & Edward Hyde, we are ensured a polished, superbly executed performance of such a high quality that the rest of the cast will have to be exceptional.  Those previous productions I have seen with Paul, have all been known to me and I had had preconceived ideas of each show, which he either lived up to or excelled.  I went to see Jekyll & Hyde with no such ideas of either the characters or the show, I was able to sit back and enjoy the drama unfolding in front of me.  The character disintegrates from suave sophisticated gentleman into a deranged seeker of carnal and bestial pleasures.  The transformations develop in pain and frequency as Hyde takes over control from Jekyll.  Not only are the mannerisms very different but also the vocal quality is at first very different gradually moving closer together.

Paul’s two leading ladies, Shona Lindsay as his fiancé Lisa Carew and Louise Dearman as Lucy Harris a lady of the night, are superb foils for each other and are two opposing sides of the one coin.  Both ladies have superb stage presence and voices to match.  Shona is well known by me having had the pleasure in seeing her in numerous roles in musical theatre. She has also worked with Paul before and they seem to have a good rapport and work well together. Shona’s costumes are opulent and her love and concern for her intended increases and develops during the show.  Louise was not such a well-known quantity and her costumes, befitting her character are more gaudy and brash. She has far more musical numbers than Shona and her voice is a pleasure to listen to.  Her fascination with Jekyll develops in to almost hero-worship and love, where as her feelings for Hyde begin in confusion and change from wary unease to terrorised loathing.

Charles Shirvell as Gabriel John Utterson is Jekyll’s lawyer, friend and confidante.  He presents a suave upright citizen who almost becomes Jekyll’s conscience and takes his friendship to the ultimate end.  Sadly his character doesn’t get any musical numbers of his own.

With a reasonably large cast and some great ensemble numbers I hope this musical gets the success I feel it deserves. Sadly the critics seem to be giving the show a difficult time but I thoroughly enjoyed the spectacle. 

The costumes and set are contrastingly bright and drab with the exception of Jekyll’s laboratory, which uses bright colours, and one or two stunning effects.  The set provides the performers with an extremely variable number of entrances and exits and all the scene changes are cleverly choreographed and very much part of the overall effect. The nine piece orchestra are hidden from the audience and do a very good job.  The technical staff have their work cut out for them and they seem to have quite a large stage crew.

I hope the show dose well and look forward to seeing it again, who knows perhaps in the West-End very soon!