I caught the back end of Chris Moyles (now there’s a thought) this morning. Their guest for today was James Nesbitt, predictably plugging the new series of Murphy’s Law which begins on Sunday.
Whilst chatting with Moyles, Nesbitt mentioned he was to star in a modernisation of Jekyll & Hyde. I hadn’t heard about this, and ordinarily I’d think it was a pretty crap idea. However: A) I quite like James Nesbitt, and I’d like to see what he does with the character, and B) it’s been created by Steven Moffatt, and by the sounds of it he’s been working on it for a while.
Moffatt, for those who don’t know, is the creator of the BBC Sit-Com Coupling, and the writer of (probably) the best Doctor Who episodes from the new series. I’m interested to see what his take on the Jekyll & Hyde mythos is.
Apparently the series is called Jekyll. Look out for it.
I once had the misfortune to catch a few minutes of “Coupling”. It made me quite angry, in the same way Coldplay and Dildo do. Nesbitt is likeably irritating but I somehow can’t see him mustering the necessary intensity to do the role justice – I just searched my brain for actors who I’d like to see do it and the first one that came to mind was Charles Collingwood (Brian Aldridge off The Archers). Now that would be interesting.
I’d argue that Nesbitt managed to demonstrate an impressive level of intensity during the current run of Murphy’s Law. He admitted himself, during his appearance of Moyles’ show, that he was worried he wouldn’t be able to pull the role off.
I have faith. Particularly in Moffatt. I found Coupling to be one of the most entertaining BBC comedies of recent years, and his Doctor Who episodes were superb.
I’m amazed. The bit of Coupling I saw really did make me want to rampage round the room breaking things
Moffatt wrote a sitcom in the 90s called “Joking Apart” which IIRC starred Robert Bathurst, who later starred in dreadful ITV drivel Cold Feet. Joking Apart and some but nowhere near all of Coupling are a triumph of set-piece situation comedy. Moffatt is testing his own boundaries in this programme and I’m not 100% convinced that it would be successful.