The Daily Mail – 17th October, 2015

Forget the doctor’s monstrous alter ego in the classic Victorian novel. ITV’s fantastical update has him as a handsome charmer.

• ITV offers a fantastical update on Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic
• Stars Tom Bateman as both the mild-mannered doctor and his alter ego
• Richard E Grant and Natalie Gumede star along side

By Tim Oglethorpe.

Genial young Dr Jekyll is checking into his hotel room, hoping for a little rest after travelling to London from Sri Lanka where he grew up. But when he reads a telegram he’s been handed by the bellboy, his expression changes dramatically.

His eyes become bulbous and bloodshot, the veins on his face and neck throb menacingly… and then the mayhem begins. Mirrors are smashed, the bed’s demolished, the curtains are ripped to shreds and the door’s left hanging from its hinges. Dr Jekyll has just turned spectacularly into Mr Hyde.

ITV’s fantastical update of Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic 1886 story to the 1930s, which stars Tom Bateman as both the mild-mannered doctor and his dangerous alter ego

But ITV’s fantastical updating of Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic 1886 story to the 1930s, which stars Tom Bateman as both the mild-mannered doctor and his dangerous alter ego, has one major twist. Mr Hyde is not the one-dimensional murderous monster he was in the original novel.

This Mr Hyde has superhero powers – in one of the opening scenes he lifts up a ten-ton runaway truck in order to rescue a young girl pinned beneath it. He’s also handsome and charming. By the time he leaves the hotel room after his orgy of destruction, the throbbing veins have disappeared to be replaced by a sexy darkness around the eyes.

He flirts with the chambermaid in the corridor and then makes a beeline for The Empire pub in London’s East End where, tie loosened, he knocks back the liquor and dances with the ladies.

‘Mr Hyde is the guy men think they are when they’re drunk – sexy, seductive, dangerous, attractive and invulnerable,’ says 26-year-old Tom.

Mr Hyde with Sir Roger Bulstrode played by Richard E Grant and Bella Charming played by Natalie Gumede

‘He’s the person we might be if there was no accountability, if we were behaving without limits. He doesn’t hold his tongue. I’ve been brought up to be polite and I’m not very confrontational, but even I have walked away from situations and thought, “If only I’d said or done that.” Well Mr Hyde says and does that.

‘But he’s not horrible. I want people to like him, be charmed by him and care about his fate as the story moves along. I was thinking a little bit about Heath Ledger’s Joker in the movie The Dark Knight when I took on the role, someone scary but also somebody audiences can relate to. And yes, somebody sexy too!’

A superhuman, seductive Mr Hyde is not the only twist in Charlie Higson’s ten-part series either. Best known for writing and starring in The Fast Show, Charlie realised he’d have to make major changes to give this very familiar tale (Jekyll And Hyde is one of the most filmed stories of all time) a fresh feel.

As well as moving it on half a century to a stylised 1930s London, complete with Art Deco buildings and beautiful cars with huge tailfins, the very nature of Dr Jekyll’s condition has been tweaked too. In the novel he downed a secret potion in his lab that turned him into Mr Hyde, whereas in this version Dr Jekyll has inherited some kind of rogue gene from his grandfather – the original Dr Jekyll in the novel – that’s activated by random events like the telegram.

‘I came up with the idea that the original Dr Jekyll awoke something that had been latent within him when he took that fateful potion, and that’s then been passed down the generations,’ says Charlie. ‘To begin with the young Dr Jekyll knows nothing about this “family curse” and the series is about him finding out who he is, why he is like he is.’

Charlie has also expanded the story to embrace a secret government organisation called Military Intelligence Other, or MIO, charged with the task of keeping monsters and freaks off the streets of Britain. Led by Sir Roger Bulstrode, played by Richard E Grant, it doesn’t seem to be doing a very good job as various creatures – including the Harbinger, who’s half-man and half-dog, and the Cutter, a 7ft 6in creature with a lobster claw for an arm – make their presence felt during the series. When MIO becomes aware of Mr Hyde, Bulstrode determines to capture him to harness his powers.

‘The part suited me down to the ground,’ says Richard, resplendent in Bulstrode’s three-piece tweed suit, cashmere coat and tan hat.

‘He’s a miserable old so-and-so and I love him. He’s always cross, always ordering people around. He’s the man keeping the British public sleeping peacefully at night, making sure they don’t have to worry about all the monsters out there. Charlie Higson actually created the role for himself but realised he couldn’t write the episodes and play Bulstrode, so luckily I got it.’

The story starts in Sri Lanka, then known as Ceylon, where the young Dr Jekyll has been brought up by foster parents, and some of the early scenes were filmed there. This is where we first get a glimpse of his superhuman powers when the truck crashes, pinning the young girl beneath it and Jekyll realises he has the strength to lift it and rescue her.

‘We used a crane to lift the truck, but as I was filming the scenes the locals who’d gathered to watch couldn’t see the crane, which was obscured by the truck, and thought I really did have superhuman powers,’ laughs Tom. Jekyll then heads to London when the family solicitor asks him to come and sort out his late grandfather’s affairs: the telegram that transforms Dr Jekyll into Mr Hyde in the hotel after his arrival tells him his foster parents have been murdered in Ceylon.

Richard says that his part of Bulstrode ‘suited him down to the ground’

Of course there’s romance too – for both Jekyll and Hyde. The sober doctor is instantly attracted to a beautiful young woman named Lily Clarke who he meets when he first arrives in London, while Hyde enjoys passionate clinches with Bella Charming, the glamorous landlady of The Empire played by 2013 Strictly Come Dancing runner-up and former Coronation Street star Natalie Gumede.

‘Bella finds Hyde irresistible, although she’s more than a match for him,’ says Natalie. ‘She’s one feisty East End landlady, but I haven’t had the chance to say, “Get out of my pub” yet.’

It will take a superhuman effort from Tom to carry the series – Jekyll & Hyde will pretty much succeed or fail on his ability to convince as the two main characters. ‘It was important to get the transformation right, to make that bridge from Jekyll to Hyde work,’ he says.

‘I had around 45 minutes between scenes where I was one and then the other, and I just had to feel the transformation taking place. There was no formula for doing it. Of course the make-up helped and I listened to what I call my angry music when I was preparing for a scene as Hyde, or a scene as Jekyll when he’s coping with the fear and panic that comes from being taken over by Hyde.

‘I wanted to do as many stunts as I could too as they’re so much part of Hyde’s character. There was a scene on the first day of filming where Hyde jumps off a 23ft wall on to concrete and I said to my stuntman Sam, “You can have that one!” But other than that, it was nearly always me doing the stunts. There’s a huge bar room bust-up in the first episode and I was involved in that for three solid days.’

It’s a first leading part for Tom, the son of two teachers and brother of an identical twin called Merlin. He’s had supporting roles in TV dramas Da Vinci’s Demons and The Tunnel but is best known for playing Shakespeare in last summer’s West End stage hit Shakespeare In Love. But according to Charlie Higson, he was far and away the best choice to play Jekyll and Hyde.

‘I think we saw every sexy young male British actor there is for the role and they were nearly all good at Dr Jekyll, the part that’s terribly nice and posh, but none of them could do Hyde. When they had to be genuinely dangerous they weren’t convincing. But Tom completely nailed it – he even scared me!’

ITV is banking on Jekyll & Hyde being a monster hit, investing a small fortune in bringing creatures such as the Cutter to life using prosthetics and the latest CGI techniques. They took over two studios in East London for six months and built six permanent sets, including a laboratory full of test tubes and chemistry books, and rooms in Dr Jekyll’s palatial London home.

The series will aim to capture the family audience the BBC bagged with Merlin and Atlantis and ITV did with dinosaur fantasy drama Primeval. But it’s darker than those shows. Perhaps a bit too dark? ‘I don’t think children will be put off by the darker elements, they love all that stuff,’ says Charlie.

‘I write children’s horror books and they can be brutal. I never want to patronise kids, they want something more grown-up and I give it them, as I have with Jekyll & Hyde. There’s enough of a fantasy element to the series, and we don’t do squirting blood or torn-off limbs.

‘I’ve always said it’s good to scare children in a safe way. Fear is thrilling. We all remember TV shows that terrified us as kids that we really enjoyed. I hope Jekyll & Hyde terrifies and delights viewers of all ages.’

Jekyll & Hyde begins on Sunday 25 October on ITV.