Critical Condition: Jekyll and Hyde

Jekyll and Hyde (TVNZ 1, 10.35 Sunday)

➢ “The storyline took Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic fantasy novel and updated it from Victorian London to the Thirties. Filled with lurid colour and gorgeous clothes, it looked like an Hercule Poirot mystery imagined by Stephen King … stylised action, sumptuous sets, rip-roaring plot, inventive monsters and diabolical villains.” — Daily Mail.

➢ “This programme had a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde complex all of its own. It was utterly unclear whether or not it was being played for laughs. Penned by Charlie Higson, of Fast Show fame, parts of it were laugh-out-loud funny. But parts of it were just very badly acted. An adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s famously dark work was always going to be peppered with the macabre and the obscure but this fell mainly into the obscure category – with some weird sexual overtones. ” — The Independent.

➢ “By moving it on down the generations, Higson allows himself to take RLS’s idea and run with it, really run with it, taking on board fantasy and sci-fi and the superheroes that the original inspired, as well as setting it in a more glamorous era, with the odd cool car and glamorous ladeez. Jekyll and Hyde is certainly imaginative, ambitious, clever and fun.” — The Guardian.

➢ “The visual effects are right up there, as is the witty, literate dialogue. Like Jekyll’s lawyer I never use an exclamation unless absolutely necessary but … damn fine bogey tale!” — The Times.

➢ “Crammed with cheap effects and hammy acting, this latest helping was as ripe and rollicking as an overcooked panto … But the humour seemed largely unintentional and was in any case subservient to the ever-present gloom. A camp, fetid mess, Jekyll & Hyde would qualify as a guilty pleasure if stumbled upon on the Horror Channel at 2am.” — The Telegraph.