A new candidate for the Midnight Society, Robert Louis Stevenson, attempts to impress the Pals with a tale of mischief, mayhem, and soup.
A new candidate for the Midnight Society, insufferable San Francisco hipster Robert Louis Stevenson, attempts to impress the Pals with the story of Henry Jekyll, a Victorian psychiatrist. On the steamship home from a business trip, Jekyll's seemingly chance meeting with a certain Edward Hyde will change his perception of reality forever. In a twist so unexpected that nobody even knows it's a twist, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde turn out to be the same person! An adrenaline-fueled social satire of mischief, mayhem and soup.
Content notes: swearing, discussion of colonialism and colonial violence, mention of death, murder and cannibalism, guns, explosions, themes of mental illness and dissociative identity.
CAST
with
Script by Robin Johnson, edited by Bitter Karella, based (very) loosely on The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) by Robert Louis Stevenson. Production and music by Robin Johnson. The sensitivity reader was Rebecca D'Souza, and Daisy McNamara was an audio consultant.
Stevenson's original novella is in the public domain, and can be found on Project Gutenberg at https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/43
A transcript of this episode can be found at https://midnight-pals.simplecast.com/episodes/s01e02-the-tale-of-dr-jekyll-and-mr-hyde/transcript
The Midnight Pals is the creation of Bitter Karella ©
Subscribe to Submitted for the Approval of the Midnight Pals on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Cast, or wherever you find podcasts. For more information, see https://midnightpals.com
[INTRO MUSIC PLAYS: A SPOOKY TUNE ON PIPE ORGAN IN 3/4 TIME, BASED AROUND 12 CHIMES OF A CHURCH BELL.]
VOICEOVER (Rodrigo Borges): Submitted for the Approval of the Midnight Pals, created by Bitter Karella.
[MUSIC PLAYS OUT.
FOREST AMBIENCE FADES IN. CAMPFIRE CRACKLING NEARBY.
STUMBLING FOOTSTEPS.]
CLIVE BARKER (Sister Indica): Watch your step.
[CRACK OF BRANCH]
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON (Dexter Howard): Mind where you're shoving me.
BARKER: Sorry.
EDGAR ALLAN POE (Rodrigo): Robert Louis Stevenson, you're here to be considered as a new member of the Midnight Society.
STEVENSON: Do I really need to wear this blindfold? It's not really my vibe.
POE: No, you don’t. (STERNLY) Does he, Clive?
BARKER: (GIGGLING) No.
STEVENSON: What? You said there was a rule—get this off me.
BARKER: I’m sorry, Rob. In my defense, it was very funny. He walked into like five trees. Five trees and a river.
STEVENSON: Oh, you think that’s funny? Great, 'cause I had to go round half the second hand stores in the Mish to find this velveteen jacket, and it’s ruined... or maybe it’s weathered-look. Yeah, I could get away with that.
RUSTLE OF A BLINDFOLD BEING UNTIED.
POE: Robert, meet the Midnight Society. You know Clive. I’m Edgar. There's Stephen.
STEPHEN KING (Jason Robinson): Big fan...
STEVENSON: Thank you.
STEPHEN: No, I was asking. Are you a big fan?
STEVENSON: Oh. Uh, bit mainstream, but... sure.
POE: Next to him, that's Dean.
STEVENSON: Hello there, Dean. Heard a lot about you.
DEAN KOONTZ (Wren Montgomery): I loved your story about pirates!
STEVENSON: Thanks, man.
DEAN: Specifically when the flying boy fed the pirate to the crocodile.
STEVENSON: (SLIGHT LAUGH) Uh, actually—
POE: This is Howard.
HP LOVECRAFT (Robin Johnson): HP Lovecraft. If you've read anything about squid-gods from the realms of madness, it was probably one of mine.
MARY SHELLEY (Rebecca D'Souza): [APPROACHING] Nah. If you've read a squid-god book it was probably based on something partly inspired by one of Howard's. If you got ten pages in and threw it at the wall, it might have been his.
POE: And that's Mary, late as usual.
SHELLEY: Oh, am I late? I'd say sorry, but actually I don't give a shit.
STEPHEN: Being punctual is part of the fun, Mary.
SHELLEY: 'Sup fuckers... new guy.
STEVENSON: Robert Louis Stevenson.
SHELLEY: Forgotten it already.
POE: Before Robert submits his story, does anyone have anything to ask? (RESIGNEDLY) Go on, Howard, let's get it over with.
LOVECRAFT: Where are you from, Robert?
STEVENSON: San Francisco.
LOVECRAFT: No... no. Where are you really from?
STEVENSON: Oh. Scotland. But I’ve traveled a lot.
SHELLEY: (DEADPAN) Oh, I bet you’re dead culturally and spiritually aware.
LOVECRAFT: Scotland? Is that one of the good ones?
STEPHEN: 'Course it is!
CLIVE: (SIMULTANEOUSLY) Jesus, Howard. There aren't good or bad places to be descended from.
LOVECRAFT: I don’t know, I hear the Scottish can be swarthy. And the men wear skirts.
STEPHEN: Don’t believe those websites, Howard, Scotland’s a perfectly fine place. In fact... as it happens, I'm (TERRIBLE ATTEMPT AT SCOTTISH ACCENT) a wee bit Scotch mesel', tae be sure! (LAUGHS)
STEVENSON: Please never do that again.
CLIVE: What brought you to SF?
STEVENSON: I was pursuing Fanny.
MARY/CLIVE: (BURST OUT LAUGHING)
CLIVE: Is, uh, is that in the British or the American sense?
POE: Clive.
SHELLEY: Yeah, Clive. It might be both.
STEVENSON: Uh, no. Fanny Osbourne. My girlfriend. She’s a writer herself. Her stories are a bit obscure, so you might not have heard of them—
SHELLEY: (INTERRUPTING) “Zero’s Tale of the Explosive Bomb”?
STEVENSON: (TAKEN ABACK) Uh—yeah, that’s her.
SHELLEY: Liked it. Did what it said on the tin.
POE: Any remarks before we get started, Robert?
STEVENSON: Yeah, just a couple notes here. We don't call anything "Scotch" except eggs, tape, and whisky, and there's no flying children and no crocodiles in Treasure Island.
SHELLEY: Treasure Island? (DERISIVELY) Maybe you should be at the other end of the woods with Tolkien and the rest of those unicorn fuckers?
STEVENSON: Oh, I think this story might be a tad fresh for the unicorn fuckers. It’s got mischief, mayhem, and soup.
[EPISODE THEME MUSIC STARTS: A PIECE IN 3/4 TIME ON CELLO, HARPSICHORD, FLUTE AND XYLOPHONE]
STEVENSON: Submitted for the Approval of the Midnight Society, I call this story—
[MAGICAL SPARKLE]
STEVENSON: —the Tale of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
FADE IN LONDON NIGHT AMBIENCE (RAIN, DISTANT HOOFBEATS).
STEVENSON (V/O): Henry was a respectable London doctor, specialising in mental healthcare for the chronically rich. Edward was his reckless cool friend who often peer-pressured Henry to follow him into dangerous situations. And this particular situation was a dangerous one indeed. They were on the very top of Tower Bridge.
MR HYDE (Sean Babapulle): (MANICALLY) I can see my house from here.
DR JEKYLL (Karim Kronfli): Mmmf mff!
STEVENSON: (V/O) Edward's house in Oldwall Road could indeed be seen from their location, but that wasn't why he had chosen it. Tower Bridge offered spectacular views of Victorian London, including—
HYDE: Buckingham Palace. Won't be there in ten minutes. Love to see Her Maj’s face when she goes to the wine cellar for a bottle of red and finds two hundredweight of dynamite.
JEKYLL: Mmfmmmmf?
HYDE: (IMPRESSION OF QUEEN VICTORIA, WHICH SOUNDS SIMILAR TO AN IMPRESSION OF QUEEN ELIZABETH II) "We are not—" BOOM!
STEVENSON: (V/O) The cellars and basements of a dozen of the most culturally, politically and economically significant buildings in the city—government departments, banks, law firms—had all been similarly restocked. Henry knew this, because Edward knew it.
JEKYLL: Pwmfff mfff mff mfmwfmff fff ff mf mwfff.
HYDE: What?
JEKYLL: I said, please take the revolver out of my mouth.
HYDE: I just did.
JEKYLL: Thank you, Edward. Now call off the detonations. You know this has gone too far.
HYDE: Too far? My good doctor, it has barely begun.
[FADE]
STEVENSON (V/O): Henry had met Edward on his way home to London from a trip to India. His work took him to the houses of ageing colonialists all over the quarter of the world that the English pretended to own at the time.
[FADE IN COLONIAL INDIAN HOUSE AMBIENCE—HOOFBEATS, MARCHING, AND OCCASIONAL TROPICAL FOREST NOISES AUDIBLE OUTSIDE.]
JEKYLL: How often do these phantasms appear?
MAJOR (David Court): Phantasms? They're no phantasms, you jumped-up little quack. They're in the bally room with us right now. Look at 'em.
JEKYLL: I don't see anybody, Major. It's just you, me, and a lot of stuffed endangered animals.
MAJOR: You're wrong, doctor, quite wrong. There's two—three of 'em, real as you are. Staring at me. Natives, you know.
JEKYLL: Do you recognise them?
MAJOR: Well... I think I may have obliterated that girl's village. The old chap next to her, he dropped dead building the foundations for my house. I remember him because he’d been whining about being thirsty all day. And the younger fellow—funny story—when we put the border in between India and Afghanistan, his house was on one side and his farm was on the other. So he starved.
JEKYLL: Major, there's nobody here. It's my opinion that these visions are a manifestation of your feelings of guilt.
MAJOR: Guilt? I'm a “Major The Honourable”, a decorated former army surgeon, Order of the British Empire. What the bloody hell have I got to be guilty about?
JEKYLL: Your participation in the exploitation of—
MAJOR: Exploitation? Nonsense. Best thing that's ever happened to 'em. (NASTY LAUGH) But then, you would spew that radical nonsense. You’re one of ’em, aren’t you?
JEKYLL: London born and raised, sir... but my mother moved over from Gujarat.
MAJOR: And your father?
JEKYLL: Not that it’s any of your business, but he was an English industrialist.
MAJOR: Shocking!
JEKYLL: A lot of my mother’s friends thought so, but they came to accept her decision.
MAJOR: And now people like you are ordering us around like you know what’s good for us.
JEKYLL: I do know what’s good for you, sir. I’m one of the best doctors in the world. If you don’t believe me, take a look at my prices. With... respect... this is exactly what I'm talking about. You're so invested in shutting down any real processing of your thoughts about the effects of your career on others that your mind has externalised them. You don't accept these thoughts as part of yourself, so you see them as other people.
MAJOR: Do you have some medicine for me or not?
JEKYLL: I'm not sure this problem can be wholly solved with medicine, but... yes, I have in fact been working on a drug to address this sort of... nervous condition.
MAJOR: Hm. Go on, then. [RATTLE OF PILLS] (INDIGNANTLY) I can't swaller that. Get me something to wash it down with. Not water, you stupid boy, I never touch the stuff. Gin. In the cabinet, behind the leopard.
[SOUND DRINK BEING POURED]
MAJOR: (GULPS) Now let's see what--(CHOKING, CONTINUING THROUGHOUT JEKYLL’S NEXT SPEECH)
JEKYLL: (OBLIVIOUS) It's experimental, but if we begin on a small dose, it should be quite safe. (PAUSE) Major? (PAUSE) Major??
[CHOKING HAS STOPPED]
JEKYLL: Oh, hell. (GRAVELY) Time of death: tiffin. (SIGH) You were about to be the breakthrough of my career, you dead imperialist shit.
[FADE.
FADE IN STEAMSHIP DINING ROOM AMBIENCE—CROWD, CLINKING OF GLASS/SILVERWARE, SEABIRDS OUTSIDE. TEA BEING POURED. MUSIC PLAYING ON SITARS AND INDIAN FLUTES IN THE DISTANCE. POURING AND SIPPING OF TEA]
STEVENSON: It was on the steamship carrying him home to London from that unsuccessful but nonetheless lucrative outpatient visit that Dr Henry Jekyll first encountered--
HYDE: Edward Hyde. May I join your table? I’m not sure I’d be welcome at many of the others.
JEKYLL: Please. I dine alone too often on these liners. What took you out to India?
HYDE: Soup.
JEKYLL: I beg your pardon?
HYDE: I make and I sell soup. My product is served between hors-d'oeuvres and fish in the finest houses and hotels in London. I've been back on the subcontinent sourcing spices and other flavours. British food can't stay as bland as it is forever, or they'll all die of sensory deprivation before 1910.
JEKYLL: Have you finished with that newspaper?
HYDE: Oh yes. Just checking the stock prices. Little soup joke, there.
[RUSTLE OF NEWSPAPER]
JEKYLL: (READING) "Disappearance of a fifth member of the House of Lords."
HYDE: Delightful, isn't it?
JEKYLL: His opponents may think so. But I have sympathy for the man's family.
HYDE: I mean the fact that we can read it. Here we are, scores of miles from any dry land, and they can wireless-telegraph the lurid gossip straight to the ship and print it on board. Solitude will be a thing of the past, in the future.
JEKYLL: So will everything. That's the nature of the future.
HYDE: As for these disappearances from the peerage. The fifth, you say?
JEKYLL: In a little over as many weeks. But this case may be a step up on the part of the villain. Four aristocrats died naturally and were abducted from their graves shortly after burial. Lord Carew Danvers here is the first to vanish alive.
HYDE: Shocking. I'd have thought there'd be at least ten before anybody noticed. Ah, here comes the soup course.
[CLINK OF MEAL BEING SERVED]
JEKYLL: Thank you.
HYDE: Not for me.
JEKYLL: You must be a hard man to please, soup-wise. (SIPPING) Ugh, it's disgusting! I don't suppose you've tried landing a contract with this shipping company? They're in dire need—
HYDE: As a matter of fact, I have already done so. My soup is making its nautical debut at this very meal. You are supping the Oldwall Road Soup Company's cream of oxtail.
JEKYLL: (AWKWARDLY) I meant no offence—perhaps they have made some mistake in the preparation—
HYDE: There is nothing wrong with the soup, good doctor. You are right, of course. It is perfectly disgusting.
JEKYLL: But—everybody's eating it, even at the Captain's table. Nobody's saying a word.
HYDE: I assure you, they find their soup quite as putrid as you do. But they cannot say so. Because my soup, as well as being disgusting, happens to be expensive. The Captain and other ladies and gentlemen of society would rather eat a bowl of rancid ooze than out themselves as someone who doesn't appreciate an exquisitely costly meal. They will smile and force themselves to swallow it, just as they do with caviar, oysters, or any number of repugnant foodstuffs that it simply isn't done to dislike. Send it back. I won't be offended.
JEKYLL: I—
HYDE: Can't bring yourself to do it? Make a scene? You are too tightly bound by the social rules of these fashionable fatheads, Dr Jekyll. You should be mindful of that. It may lead you into situations more unpalatable than that soup.
JEKYLL: I don't remember telling you my name.
HYDE: I have observed you. Are you going to finish the bowl?
[HALFHEARTED STIRRING OF SOUP]
JEKYLL: (WEAKLY) Yes.
HYDE: Allow me to spare you.
[SOUND OF BOWL BEING PUSHED OFF TABLE AND SMASHING. SOUP FLYING]
HYDE: Whoops!
[FADE.
FADE IN BUSY STREET AMBIENCE WITH CROWD, HOOFBEATS, AND A LARGE HOUSE FIRE. HORSE-DRAWN VICTORIAN FIRE ENGINE ARRIVES AND STARTS PUMPING WATER.
STEVENSON: (V/O) Dr Jekyll usually enjoyed the vibe of returning to his London home, a boho apartment in Shoreditch, after a long voyage. Sadly, on this occasion, home turned out to be on fire.
CONSTABLE (Canavan Connolly): Can't let you go in there, sir.
JEKYLL: But... I live there. I have rooms on the third floor.
CONSTABLE: Not now, you don't. Sorry, sir... there's nothing left. Is there somebody you can wire?
[FADE.
QUIETER STREET AMBIENCE FADES IN.
KNOCKING ON DOOR. DOOR OPENS]
POOLE (Daisy McNamara): Sir?
JEKYLL: Is—is Mr Hyde at home?
POOLE: (SLIGHT LAUGH) Do come in, sir. Shall I bring you some soup? You look cold, if you don't mind my saying so.
JEKYLL: Er—a cup of tea would be quite adequate, thank you.
POOLE: A wise choice, sir. There is always a pot in the dining-room.
DOOR OPENS AND CLOSES.
JEKYLL: (CALLING AFTER POOLE AS SHE LEAVES) When can I expect Mr Hyde? [POURS AND SIPS TEA] Well, at least his tea is better than his soup.
HYDE: Doctor.
JEKYLL: (STARTLED) Ah!
HYDE: I am sorry to disappoint you, but I am feeling quite well, so what is it you want?
JEKYLL: As it happens, my rooms were destroyed in a fire, and as I have no family who are still speaking to me—
HYDE: You thought you could invite yourself to stay here?
JEKYLL: For the night, at least? If it isn't an imposition.
HYDE: Oh, I'll see that you pay your way. (CALLING) Poole. Poo-oole!
[DOOR OPENS]
POOLE: Sir?
HYDE: Prepare the spare room for Dr Jekyll.
POOLE: As you say, sir.
[DOOR CLOSES]
STEVENSON: (V/O) Henry should have been calling insurance firms. Finding a new place to live, rescheduling his appointments. But after the steamship voyage and the shock of the house fire, he felt he needed a day or two to recuperate. Edward seemed in no rush to be rid of him, so Henry stayed another day. And then another. It was a curious house, far larger than seemed necessary to accommodate one unmarried man and his ascetic housekeeper, and except for the two men's bedrooms, the curious-smelling basement kitchen where Poole apparently slept, and a parlour used only on rare occasions when Edward was entertaining potential clients in the combative world of soup production, the building seemed run down, almost dilapidated.
[CLINKING OF TEA THINGS, POURING, SIPPING]
JEKYLL: Hyde, do you actually own this house?
HYDE: No. It was the London residence of a terminally angry aristocrat. Viscount—
JEKYLL: —Balgreen. He was a patient of mine. Used to come for a check-up whenever he was feeling happy. He died three years ago. I had the pleasure of signing his death certificate. Was he a relative of yours?
HYDE: The Viscount left no will. There were a few great-nephews in America, but none of them considered the potential inheritance worth the monumental effort of liking the man. I happen to know that his death certificate was misplaced on its way to the registrar. As far as the hivemind of bureaucracy knows, Balgreen is alive and miserable and living in this house. Owes a small fortune in rates, but no common policeman would dare challenge a Viscount over a few petty hundred thousand. So I set up home and business here, Dr Jekyll. The opportunity presented itself and I took it. Do you intend to turn me in?
JEKYLL: I suppose there's no harm in it.
HYDE: Good. Because for one thing, you're now an accomplice. Get your cravat, my good doctor. We're going out.
JEKYLL: Where?
HYDE: Tonight we make soup.
[FADE. FADE IN AMBIENCE OF A VICTORIAN GRAVEYARD AT NIGHT—CHURCH CLOCK, BATS, SCURRYING IN GRASS. HOOFBEATS AND FOOTSTEPS IN DISTANCE]
HYDE: Pass me the number two lockpick, Poole.
POOLE: Number two lockpick, sir.
[RATTLING OF A LOCK]
JEKYLL: What part of soup making involves breaking and entering into--
HYDE: Got it.
[METAL GATE SWINGING OPEN]
JEKYLL: —into a cemetery?
HYDE: Not a cemetery, my good doctor. The most expensive and exclusive cemetery in London. Only corpses of means end up here. Those who wouldn't be seen dead sharing a graveyard with common cadavers.
JEKYLL: And what has this to do with us? Or rather, with you, and apparently your housekeeper?
HYDE: Have you heard of the Resurrection Men?
JEKYLL: (COLDLY) The miscreants who dig up fresh graves to steal bodies?
POOLE: The miscreants who murder people to fill fresh graves, and then steal the bodies.
HYDE: To make soup, first we boil meat. And the best meat comes from humans.
JEKYLL: What?!
HYDE: And the best human meat comes from hereditary peers. The cream of society. Born with a silver spoon in their mouths... and end up on a spoon in someone else’s.
POOLE: Lord Evington was recently successfully dispatched, sir. I'm told we'll find him in plot 47B.
HYDE: Very good, Poole. Ready the shovel.
JEKYLL: In the name of God!
HYDE: We're selling rich people their own boneless arses back to them. It's beautiful.
[SOUND OF DIGGING]
By the way, Poole, what did go wrong with Lord Carew Danvers? We can't start taking them alive just yet, you know.
POOLE: (BREATHLESSLY, WHILE DIGGING) An unfortunate... miscalculation, sir. His Lordship disturbed me... whilst I was placing the poison... It became necessary to make use of a faster acting toxin... namely, gunpowder... On the upside, sir, His Lordship did make a popular minestrone.
HYDE: Well, now there are three of us, you shouldn't be short of a lookout in future.
POOLE: Three, sir?
HYDE: Me, you, and the good doctor here... where'd he bloody go? I'd best be after him. You keep digging. Try not to murder anyone without my permission.
[FADE.
SOUNDS OF A RAINY CITY NIGHT. FOOTSTEPS RUN ACROSS FLAGSTONES, THEN UP SOME STONE STEPS AND THROUGH A DOOR. AMBIENCE CHANGES TO QUIET POLICE STATION INTERIOR—OCCASIONAL CHAINS RATLING, WEATHER AND HORSE/FOOT TRAFFIC STILL AUDIBLE OUTSIDE.
A DESK BELL RINGS]
CONSTABLE: Can I help you, sir? Oh, it's yourself. How's the flat?
JEKYLL: Still burnt down, I'm afraid. I've been bunking up with a friend. That's who I wanted to talk to you about.
[DOOR OPENS]
POOLE: There you are.
JEKYLL: Poole! Wonderful. Poole can back up everything I tell you, Constable. There's a gang of grave robbers and murderers boiling the aristocracy into upmarket soup—
POOLE: Constable, could we have a few minutes alone?
CONSTABLE: Sure. I'll be, er, I'll grab some soup.
POOLE: Now, sir, I was given strict instructions that if you were ever to try and turn yourself in--
JEKYLL: Turn myself in? For what?
POOLE: Complicity in the Resurrections—
JEKYLL: I'm not complicit!
POOLE: —the murder of Lord Carew Danvers—
JEKYLL: I had nothing to do with—
POOLE: —and the appropriation of Viscount Balgreen's town-house...
JEKYLL: Oh. I suppose I have been living there without permission as such. But surely they will see that Edward Hyde is the ringleader. You and I—
POOLE: Let's go home, sir.
[FADE.
HOUSE AMBIENCE FADES IN. FRONT DOOR UNLOCKS AND OPENS]
JEKYLL: Do you suppose you could put on another pot of tea, Poole? I am afraid it has been... rather a day.
POOLE: Regrettably, I have business elsewhere. I only came to see you safely home, and to pick up my knives. Have a good night, sir.
[DOOR CLOSES]
JEKYLL: (CALLING) Mr Hyde! Edward! We need to talk. There you—oh, you’re....
UTTERSON (Brad Barnes): Sorry, sir.
JEKYLL: ...not him.
UTTERSON: Didn't mean to get in your way.
JEKYLL: Hang on. Who are you two?
UTTERSON: The Revelation Men have no names, sir.
JEKYLL: The Resurrection men?
LANYON (Robin): No, sir. The Revelation Men. Phase Two.
JEKYLL: How many of you are there?
LANYON: The Revelation Men answer no questions, sir.
JEKYLL: What's in that bag.
UTTERSON: Don't worry.
LANYON: Everything's going to plan, Mr Hyde.
["MR HYDE" ECHOES SURREALLY AS THE AMBIENCE FADES.
FOREST/CAMPFIRE AMBIENCE FADES BACK IN]
DEAN: (V/O) Why'd he call Dr Jekyll Mr Hyde?
AMBIENCE CHANGES BACK TO CAMPFIRE.
STEVENSON: What a question! (PROUD OF HIMSELF) Why would anyone think Dr Jekyll was Mr Hyde—
SHELLEY: (INTERRUPTING) Because they're the same person.
STEVENSON: Hey! Spoiler alert!
POE: Robert, we all knew. Didn't we?
STEPHEN: Yeah.
CLIVE (SIMULTANEOUSLY) Yep.
LOVECRAFT: Yeah, I thought that's how Jekyll and Hyde started.
STEPHEN: Wait. It’s supposed to be a twist?
STEVENSON: Yes.
STEPHEN: Huh. I thought you'd already said it.
STEVENSON: No! That's one of my greatest plot twists ever. It's almost as dope as the twist in Treasure Island.
CLIVE: There's a twist in Treasure Island?
STEVENSON: Yeah! They meet this real nice old man, Long John Silver—maybe you’ve heard of him—and out of nowhere, he turns out to be... I'm not gonna say it in case anyone hasn’t read it yet, but... hmmm hm hmmm-hmmmm!
SHELLEY: Have I got this right? What you're saying, or, for some reason, hummingm is that the twist in Treasure Island is that Long John Silver is a pirate?
STEVENSON: Dude! You spoilered it again!
SHELLEY: No. Everybody knows that.
STEPHEN: I didn't know that.
STEVENSON: There, see?
STEPHEN: I mean, I didn't know it was a twist.
STEVENSON: Obviously it's a twist! No intelligent reader would suspect he's a pirate. He's so chill, he's so friendly. He calls everyone matey.
LOVECRAFT: Does anyone who's not a pirate say that? You know, I’m really not a fan of pirates. I’ve heard they’re a kind of sailor and you know some sailors are very, uh, you know…
STEVENSON: And, AND, he's even kind to animals. He loves his parrot, the one that sits on his shoulder like a little sidekick.
CLIVE: Does anyone who's not a pirate even have a parrot?
SHELLEY: My spare boyfriend Byron's got a parrot. But to be fair, he's like, one maiming away from being a pirate.
CLIVE: Next thing you’re gonna tell us your surprise pirate’s got one leg, dirty tattoos and an eye patch as well?
STEVENSON: He does not... have an eye patch... plus, if missing legs and parrots are pirate midtown now, you know what? That's because of me! I did it before it was cool.
DEAN: What? Long John Silver was a pirate?
STEVENSON: (FIRMLY) Anyway.
[AMBIENCE FADES BACK TO HYDE’S HOUSE. SURREAL MUSIC IN BACKGROUND]
JEKYLL: I've been Mr Hyde all along?
UTTERSON: Of course you have, sir.
LANYON: Who else would you be?
SHELLEY: (V/O) See? Even the other characters already knew it.
STEVENSON: (V/O) Yes, but they didn't know he was Jekyll—oh, forget it.
[FADE.
POLICE STATION AMBIENCE FADES IN. DESK BELL RINGS.]
CONSTABLE: Hello again, sir. What is it this time?
JEKYLL: I need you to arrest me. I am the leader of an anarchist conspiracy which has been turning the upper classes into soup for several months--
CONSTABLE: I see. Please follow me, sir.
[AMBIENCE FADES OUT AND BACK IN. LESS NOISE, MORE ECHO, TO INDICATE A CORRIDOR DEEPER INSIDE THE BUILDING]
CONSTABLE: If you'd step into our interview room, I shall return in a few minutes to take a statement.
JEKYLL: Interview room? It looks to me more like a cell.
CONSTABLE: Interview cell.
JEKYLL: Hang on—
[CELL DOOR BEING LOCKED]
Hey! What are you doing? I want to see your superior.
CONSTABLE: (MUFFLED OUTSIDE CELL DOOR) I'm afraid he's busy being made into soup at the moment.
JEKYLL: What's your name?
CONSTABLE: The Revelation Men have no names... sir.
[AMBIENCE FADES OUT AND IN AGAIN TO INDICATE TIME SKIP]
POOLE: (APPROACHING) It's just that he hasn't taken his medicine in a few days, you know?
CONSTABLE: (OFF) No trouble at all, madam. You can pick up Mr Hyde right now.
CELL DOOR BEING UNLOCKED AND OPENED. VOICES BECOME CLEAR.
JEKYLL: I'm not Mr Hyde. My name is Dr Henry Jekyll--
CONSTABLE: You said you'd say that, sir.
JEKYLL: All right. In that case, I am Mr Hyde, and I am telling you that everything we're doing stops right now.
CONSTABLE: You said you'd definitely say that.
POOLE: I brought you a flask of tea, sir. Drink up. You'll feel better.
JEKYLL: If you think I'm eating or drinking anything you bring me--
POOLE: Get a hold of him, Constable. Hold his nose.
[STRUGGLING. TEA BEING POURED]
JEKYLL: Agh! (SPLUTTERING, SWALLOWING)
POOLE: There we go.
HYDE: That's enough, Poole. Constable, bring the carriage round. I'll meet you at the front door. And don't worry. I'm quite safe.
[FADE
FADE IN AMBIENCE OF INSIDE OF CAB—HOOFBEATS, CLATTER OF WHEELS ON COBBLES, HEAVY ECHO. MINOR-KEYED, STRINGSY VERSION OF EPISODE THEME PLAYS AS BACKGROUND MUSIC]
HYDE: Do you remember how you first met me?
JEKYLL: On the steamer from India.
HYDE: That's when and where. I asked how. In a way, it's an unfair question. I've been around you as long as you've existed. Let's go back a bit. What were you doing in India?
JEKYLL: I was treating a retired major.
HYDE: Ah yes, the former army surgeon. Awful man.
JEKYLL: He saw people who weren't there. Usually some unfortunate sods whose homes he'd destroyed. The poor man's guilt and self-loathing caused him to hallucinate his victims. He was extremely distressed.
HYDE: My heart bleeds.
JEKYLL: I developed a drug for it. A medicine that acted on the thalamus—the brain’s centre of imagination—to isolate these different parts of his consciousness and suppress the ones that weren't wanted. But the major died of an unrelated condition... I'm fairly sure.
HYDE: No.
JEKYLL: No?
HYDE: Your drug worked better than you know. It suppressed most of the unwanted guests in the major's brain. But at some cost. The man suffered horribly—as he deserved!—while his mind's creations fought among themselves until only one guest remained, who’d managed to hide at the back.
JEKYLL: One?
HYDE: (DARKLY) Mr Edward Hyde.
JEKYLL: What?
HYDE: I could have crushed you at any moment. Taken the reins away from you completely. But I knew I wouldn't get anywhere without a respectable alter ego I could use when I needed an invitation to a society party... or a function at Buckingham Palace. So I kept you around. Stuck a few corks in your memory. Let me take one of them out. Do you remember the major’s name now?
JEKYLL: Henry Jekyll.
HYDE: One of the first of the King’s Commissioned Indian Officers. A celebrated project of cultural co-operation—two nations working together for the benefit of one of them. Of course, to gain any credibility in that outfit, you had to show yourself to be completely... impartial. And you did. They gave you the mask and your face grew to fit it.
JEKYLL: (HORRIFIED) He made that drug—I made that drug for myself.
HYDE: You're what's left of the Major's "good side", as his paler colleagues would have called it. The part of him that was twisted until it took pride in the lands he stripped, the communities he devastated. The part that was honoured and celebrated and plied with champagne and medals whenever he returned to London from putting the boot to his own people. How much of it do you remember now?
JEKYLL: (DEVASTATED) Everything.
HYDE: And I—I’m everything you bottled up. Shame. Guilt. Fury at everything those polite bastards made us do. You didn't even know I existed. I'd come out at night, when you thought you were asleep. I made arrangements. Telegraphed a few of your old army contacts in London, people who’d had the decency to get out when they realised what we were doing to those lands. I had Poole take possession of the town-house, set up the Oldwall Road Soup Company and begin... (HANNIBAL LECTER-ESQUE INHALATION) production. So that everything would be waiting for us when we got back. And I made us a slightly modified version of the drug, which I slipped into your personal tea supply.
JEKYLL: Tea... you only ever appeared when I drank tea.
HYDE: Tea, Dr Jekyll. Quite the symbol of genteel English life. Stolen from a culture they subjugated and enslaved to farm it for themselves, and now they’ve built their national identity around it. You took yours with milk, no sugar, and a psychoactive agent that allowed us to meet face to face.
[HOOFBEATS AND CLATTERING STOP. MUSIC FADES OUT. A CARRIAGE DOOR OPENS]
HYDE: We're here.
[FOOTSTEPS CLIMBING OUT OF CARRIAGE. AMBIENCE FADES TO STREETS AT NIGHT]
JEKYLL: Where?
HYDE: Tower Bridge. [CLANK OF METAL GATE BEING UNLOCKED AND OPENED] Get up the stairs.
JEKYLL: No!
[CLICK OF A REVOLVER]
HYDE: I wasn't asking.
FOOTSTEPS CLIMBING STAIRS.
One of your old army contacts was a demolitions expert. Got us the dynamite.
JEKYLL: Dynamite?
HYDE: Fantastic stuff. You saw what it did to our old flat? That was one stick. We've got a front row seat.
STEVENSON (V/O) Which is where we came in.
JEKYLL: You know this has gone too far.
HYDE: Too far? My good doctor, it has barely begun.
JEKYLL: You're not really here. You don't even exist.
HYDE: Existence isn't an attribute.
JEKYLL: And that revolver isn't in your hand. It's in my hand.
HYDE: Doesn't change a thing.
JEKYLL: No, I suppose it doesn't.
[IN THE DISTANCE, A CLOCK BEGINS TO CHIME MIDNIGHT]
HYDE: The corks in our brain have been popped. Our minds are re-merging. In a few minutes, we’ll be one person again.
[HUGE EXPLOSION IN DISTANCE]
JEKYLL: What was that?
HYDE: The British Museum. The contents are en route to their original owners.
[SEVERAL EXPLOSIONS IN SUCCESSION, WHICH HYDE ACCOUNTS FOR AFTER EACH ONE]
HYDE: [EXPLOSION. CHIMING STOPS AS BELL CLANGS TO THE GROUND] Parliament. [EXPLOSION] The Bank of England. [EXPLOSION] Saint Paul’s Cathedral. [EXPLOSION] The Royal Albert Hall.
JEKYLL: Not a fan of music?
HYDE: On the contrary. But that building was killing music slowly. Music that lives is played in twopenny theatres in the East End, or by sitarists on the roadsides, or the platforms of the underground railway.
[ANOTHER EXPLOSION]
JEKYLL: And there goes Buck House.
HYDE: Nobody inside but Queen Vic and her husband. Chambermaids, beefeaters--all our people. The rest of the family will have to learn to fend for themselves.
JEKYLL: Maybe they can start playing music on the underground railway. (SHORT LAUGH) I can't believe we did it, Edward. Edward? (PAUSE) Oh.
[MORE EXPLOSIONS. EPISODE THEME MUSIC STARTS PLAYING]
I shall miss you, Mr Hyde. (PAUSE) You met me at a very strange time in my life.
[MUSIC PLAYS OUT.
FADE BACK TO CAMPFIRE]
STEVENSON: The end.
POE: Thank you, Robert. What did everyone think?
KOONTZ: I liked the twist. Who’da thought it? Long John Silver a pirate!
STEPHEN: I liked it too. In fact, I’m pretty sure I understood it on a level most fans won’t appreciate.
LOVECRAFT: Frankly, I thought it was leftist preaching.
SHELLEY: You think anything not written by you or Dan Simmons is leftist preaching, Howard. Personally, I think they coulda blown a bit more shit up. Maybe get your girlfriend to give you a hand with the explosive bombs next time, Robert.
BARKER: Coulda been gayer.
STEVENSON: So... are you guys not gonna vote me in?
POE: What?
STEVENSON: Well, when I first found out about the Midnight Society, before it was cool... I’m sure I heard that for a new member to join, you’ve all to vote--
POE: Uh, no.
STEVENSON: --and it’s got to be unanimous.
POE: No. Not sure where you got that idea.
SHELLEY: You think we’d have unanimously voted to admit Howard? Like I’d have voted for him?
LOVECRAFT: Yeah, well, you think I’d have voted for her? A libertine, an anarchist, a sexual deviant, hangs around with Italians--
SHELLEY: (INTERRUPTING) You’re just listing all my best qualities.
KING: There’s no vote. If you write horror and you can find the place, you’re in.
POE: Welcome to the Midnight Society, Robert.
STEVENSON: Thank you. It’s an honour... I think.
[END THEME MUSIC PLAYS—SAME MELODY AS INTRO MUSIC, BUT ON HARP AND WOODWINDS.]
VOICEOVER (Rodrigo): Submitted for the Approval of the Midnight Pals starred Rodrigo Borges as Edgar Allan Poe, Jason Robinson as Stephen King, Rebecca D'Souza as Mary Shelley, Sister Indica as Clive Barker, Wren Montgomery as Dean Koontz, and Robin Johnson as HP Lovecraft, with Dexter Howard as Robert Louis Stevenson, Karim Kronfli as Dr Jekyll, Sean Babapulle as Mr Hyde, David Court as the Major, Daisy McNamara as Poole, Canavan Connolly as the Constable, Brad Barnes and Robin Johnson as the Revelation Men, and Senni Rivera as Fanny Osbourne. The script was written by Robin Johnson and edited by Bitter Karella, with a story based extremely loosely on The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. The sensitivity reader was Rebecca D'Souza. The episode was directed and producted by Robin Johnson. Daisy McNamara was an audio consultant. Submitted for the Approval of the Midnight Pals is created by Bitter Karella. All characters are fictitious, especially the real ones. If you have enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving us a rating or a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favourite podcast platform. Find Submitted for the Approval of the Midnight Pals wherever you find podcasts, or follow us on twitter at @midnight_pals.
[MUSIC PLAYS OUT. FADE IN CAMPFIRE AMBIENCE]
STEVENSON: All right, give it up for my girlfriend, Fanny Osbourne!
FANNY OSBOURNE (Senni Rivera): Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, I call this story... [SPARKLE] The Tale of the Explosive Bomb.
CLIVE: Does it explode?
OSBOURNE: No.