Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Presented by UCL Drama Society

"While it might be possible, of course, that like our brain our personalities are binary. That far from being one, we may possess two selves. A base half and a higher half. And that our lives are fundamentally a battleground on which they slug 'em out."

David Edgar’s adaptation of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, based on Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella, is a psychological thriller that explores the tensions between science, morality, and social repression.

Dr Henry Jekyll is a well respected doctor with a radical belief: that the contradictions within human nature are responsible for many of society’s ills. Determined to separate these opposing forces through scientific experimentation, he creates Edward Hyde, a violent and amoral alter ego who embodies everything society demands we suppress. As Hyde increasingly escapes Jekyll’s control, Jekyll is forced to confront the consequences of his ambition.

Rooted in the anxieties of Victorian era yet strikingly contemporary, this story speaks to a world shaped by reputation, performance and public image in which we are quick to categorise individuals as wholly good or bad. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde asks what is lost when we reduce human nature to such absolutes, and what emerges when the parts of ourselves we try to hide refuse to remain hidden.

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