Jekyll vs Hyde: The Potion of Doom

Robert Louis Stevenson’s Jekyll and Hyde is not an obvious starting point for a madcap children’s comedy, but Jack Meggitt-Phillips has never been an obvious kind of writer, and the collision of gothic source material with gleeful slapstick turns out to be inspired.

Henrik Jekyll is terrible. Comprehensively, spectacularly terrible, the product of two warring, self-absorbed and thoroughly ridiculous parents who have between them produced a child of towering selfishness. When the family discovers that Henrik is the heir to a crumbling mansion in the village of Gothville, left to him by his ancestor Dr Jekyll, they descend on it immediately. Gothville, it becomes clear, is not quite like other places, and the mansion least of all. When Henrik stumbles upon Dr Jekyll’s laboratory and, inevitably, starts experimenting with what he finds there, he manages to unleash Eddie Hyde: a chaotic, reckless and deeply alarming alter ego who makes the original Henrik look almost reasonable by comparison.

Into this mayhem steps Gabby, local resident, irrepressible optimist and, in her frequently absent father’s place, the town’s acting solicitor. Where Henrik and his family bring chaos and destruction, Gabby brings an unshakeable belief in hope and goodness and the conviction that things can be made better. Whether she can save Henrik from himself, and whether their unlikely friendship can save Gothville in the process, drives the story to its chaotic conclusion.

Meggitt-Phillips writes with enormous comic energy and a gift for the kind of dark, subversive, slapstick humour that children love and adults find themselves laughing at despite themselves. The pacing is relentless, the jokes land consistently and the characters spring off the page. Holly Swain’s illustrations add to the anarchic atmosphere throughout.

This is the kind of book that finds its way into the hands of a reluctant reader and stays there. Fast moving, irreverent and genuinely funny, Jekyll vs Hyde: The Potion of Doom feels like the beginning of a series destined to become a firm favourite. Sequels, one assumes, are already in the works, and readers who meet Henrik and Gabby here will not want to wait long for more.