Review – Viewable Jekyll and Hyde in Birmingham’s Crescent creates a terribly good theater – Bromsgrove Standard

Robert Luis Stevenson’s fearful Gothic classic novel has been adapted to the stage and screen many times, and in many ways, from Hammer Horror to Sing-A-A-A-Hyde-Ee, you would think everything was “burned out”. Then this new version appeared a few years ago by the writer of the rules Neil Bartlet. This is an internal presentation of a crescent of the crescent, on the main stage throughout this week.

First, there were no female characters in the original story, except for a maid who was considered an unreliable witness to Hyde’s hiding. The Scotsman’s tale was a little misogynistic, while here Bartlet presents a female storyteller in the form of Dr. Stefanson (diligent, but sometimes hard to hear Amanda Nieles), Matron (intelligent portrait form Paula Snow) and Esther “Take Outa My Park” And las (delightful Phoebe Benson).

Photo from Grame Braidwood. s

Second, there is a Greek choir. The basic director of the theater and the opera, Michael Barry, is an ideal choice to make the most of Bartlet’s bizarre to add five Victorian Victorian gentlemen to the production. They act in harmony as cultural clowns or sinister thugs depending on the situation, plus as called united characters, including sometimes good doctor Jekyll and bad Hyde.

The famous Five Goths includes Robert Laard, Elliot McDowell, Brian Wilson, Stephen Message and Steve Davis, who are always ubiquitous on stage and all give up sterling. When they sang and whistled “Maybe it’s because I am London” together it was like the famous “Singing in the Rain” sequence by “Clockwork Orange” a ruthless and gloomy signal to a severe evil approaching.

Photo from Grame Braidwood. s

Sam Jackson makes an excellent crescent, playing the main main characters of Jekyll and Hyde with full physics and ridicule, which rattles around the audience.

Keith Harris’s set consists of smart trucks that tell a story in themselves from the elegance of the dining room to the street debauchery through hospitals and laboratories, all wrapped in smoke and fog and son, and illuminated by James BUT. Kevin Middleton adds ghostly sounds and some classic AV images that complete an almost perfect technical achievement for all rounds,

My only thought was that since from time to time, Mikes radio was used, it may be better for everyone to transfer all the way, as the lines are sometimes lost in subtlety. The old theatrical gait rises that while players know their lines from the inside out, we only hear them once.

Photo from Grame Braidwood. s

Barry has collected some memorable moments from Bartlett’s adaptation – in fact, for me, the style is better than the substance.

Act Second is stronger than Act One, less complicated and with more action. Aside, it remains an extremely viewed, well-directed and filled piece of unique theater from the best in Birmingham.

Jekyll and Hyde work on Crescent until Saturday, February 15th. Click here for times, tickets and more information.

Review by Ewan Rose

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