It’s something to see when Jorn-Bjorn Fuller-Gee climbs the walls of the Spriet Theatre. His Hyde runs the streets of the other London with such wild-eyed abandon that it’s genuinely scary, and Jekyll’s early dismissal of his alter ego’s disreputable
actions borders on the psychopathic itself.
The Jekyll and Hyde story is often remembered as simply being about the transformations, but Iain MacFarlane’s script and Iain Ormsby-Knox’s direction don’t sidestep the acts that Hyde performs. Hyde’s first crime is made disturbingly real on stage, and the savagery of another attack is truly horrific.
To those (like me) who have met Fuller-Gee on the street, he seems the most unlikely person possible to play the monster, and only slightly less so Dr. Jekyll. Don’t let those impressions sway you: he embodies both characters so completely it’s hard to believe the actor himself isn’t seriously deranged.
The previous review calls this show a masterpiece
; I submit that may be an understatement.
(Apologies to Iain Ormsby-Knox, who I inadvertently combined with Iain MacFarlane!)
