Review: Jekyll and Hyde @ Civic Theatre, Oswaldtwistle

12:12pm Tuesday 18th November 2008

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I’LL admit I went to see this show mostly because I felt obliged to, as I’m trying to get more people in general to go to shows at the Civic Theatre.

I’m glad I did too. This show was professional, creative, spectacular and most of all, well acted – I was impressed.

Director Howard Raw chose a show that challenged the audience – it was violent, raunchy and at times almost uncomfortable to watch but that was part of its brilliance.

Just because you’ve paid for a night out with your friends, doesn’t mean that you should be allowed to switch off.

The story is relatively straight forward – Dr Jekyll wants to experiment with mankind’s evil DNA and eventually extract it so that everyone will be good.

He can't find a suitable subject so starts to experiment on himself, bringing his evil personal Edward Hyde – a serial killer – to the fore.

But one could ask: “Is Mr Hyde the good side, trying to rid the world of all the other evil people?

There was a lot that I loved about the show. The big chorus numbers were extremely well choreographed; the transition between scenes was really creatively done without pause pause or delay; lighting was clever and evocative.

There were a few hiccups with sound but that’s just me nitpicking, it didn’t detract from the overall presentation.

But the main thing that I loved in this production was that the acting and singing throughout was superb – a very talented cast, especially Peter Norris as Jekyll/Hyde.