Jekyll & Hyde: National Theatre's school tour

In January 2024, the National Theatre is set to tour a 90-minute production of Evan Placey's Jekyll & Hyde to 60 state schools across England. The show is a reimaging of the gothic novella, leveraging live performance as a tool to engage school students with contemporary issues. Robert Louis Stevenson's infamous story has been cleverly reworked by Placey, who draws parallels between the marginalisation of women in Victorian society and contemporary challenges they face.

The play opens with Hattie (Jekyll) seeking to continue the legacy of her late scientist husband. Placey also introduces a second protagonist, Florence, a 21^st century blogger who writes fan fiction. Both women confront misogynistic views in their respected eras; Hattie is rejected by her husband's colleagues for suggesting her desire to conduct medical research and Florence is patronised by the police as an ‘eighteen-year-old little girl’ when she tries to report online trolling. The two stories unexpectedly intersect at the end of Act 1, when Hattie is unveiled as a character in Florence's fan fiction, illustrating the endurance of the aforementioned themes over time.