Melancholy Mentor Podcast
Welcome to Melancholy Mentor where classic literature meets the vibrant world of radio plays.
Melancholy Mentor Podcast
Beyond the Potion: The Man Behind Jekyll and Hyde
Gothic literature meets radio drama in our exploration of Robert Louis Stevenson's timeless masterpiece "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde."
We journey through the fascinating life of this Scottish literary titan, from his birth in Edinburgh in 1850 to his final days in the tropical paradise of Samoa where he penned some of literature's most enduring works.
Discover the poignant romance between Stevenson and his wife Fanny, whose ashes would eventually join him atop Mount Vaea, creating a fitting epilogue to their love story. We examine how Victorian obsessions with science, dual personalities, and sensationalized crime created perfect conditions for Stevenson's exploration of humanity's darker impulses. Was Mr. Hyde always lurking within Dr. Jekyll, or did the transformation itself create the monster? This question continues to haunt readers and viewers across generations.
Send us an email to let us know your thoughts or if you have anything to add at ⏬⏬
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You can watch the radio drama episode we are discussing on our YouTube channel :
https://youtube.com/@melancholy_mentor
Hello everyone and welcome to Melancholy Mentor, where classic literature meets the vibrant world of radio plays. I'm Fran and I'm joined by Evan from Mystery Mythos. Together, we're your guides on this creative journey. During each episode, we'll dive into stories featured on the Melancholy Mentor channel, allowing fresh ideas to flourish, inspiring you to dream big and unlock your creative potential. Get comfy, open your mind and embrace curiosity. Let's get started. Hello, I'm Fran.
Speaker 2:And I'm Evan.
Speaker 1:And today we're bringing you the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. So each week we're highlighting a radio drama episode that features on our YouTube channel Melancholy Mentor.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:We've also got other YouTube channels, so no doubt a podcast will be following for those as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But at the moment we're focusing on Melancholy Mentor, so the radio dramas that are featured on there. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is an 1886 Gothic novella. It was written by Robert Louis Stevenis stevenson, who was a scottish author. He was born in 1850 in scotland's capital city, edinburgh. He died in 1894 aged 44 yeah now, we've actually been to edinburgh, haven't we yeah?
Speaker 1:yeah yeah, we did um like a road trip around. I tripped it, yeah, around scotland. So, for context, we're in the uk and we're based in england, so we're on the south coast of england and the uk is made up of the british isles, so there's lots of little islands and then a bigger island and we're on the bigger island. Yeah, and if you drive for I don't know, maybe 10 or 11 hours, you start to hit the I don't know, I suppose it depends really on traffic and stuff like that, but you start to hit the bottom end of Scotland and then it goes right up into the highlands which are full of wee flying beasties.
Speaker 2:That will bite you, they will bite you all over yeah, lots of like little midges or something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was a bit of a shock, wasn't it? Yeah? So back to robert. He wrote novels, plays, poetry, essays and travel literature. Another of his famous novels is treasure island, yes, which admittedly I've never read. I've never read it either, and is it on your book list?
Speaker 2:it is on my book list. Yeah, I've got quite a few on there, but yeah, that's a classic one that is actually on there you might actually need to start reading the books on your book list to get to it.
Speaker 1:So Robert married Frances Matilda Vandegrift, who became known as Fanny Stevenson. Now Fanny is also my name, so my name is Frances and a derivative of that is Fanny. A lot of people ask me if my name is Francesca, or they used to anyway, Like if I said my name was Fran or Fran, they'd often say is it Francesca? No, it's Frances, which is quite considered old-fashioned these days, I suppose. But during the Victorian era there was more of us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Fanny was born in 1840 and she died in 1914 and she was aged 73 and she actually passed away in California. Fanny had two children, lloyd and Isabel, who became Robert's stepchildren when Robert and Fanny married in 1880. His brother and his family settled in Samoa. Now Samoa is officially the independent state of Samoa. It's a collection of islands actually in Polynesia.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, it consisted of islands in the South Pacific Ocean, fascinating place, kind of seeing things on documentaries and stuff like that. It's not a place that I've ever visited, no, no place. Kind of seeing things on documentaries and stuff like that. It's not a place that I've ever visited. No, no, he liked the people, the climate and no doubt found it a good place to write. Yeah, you know, nice and inspiring. Inspiring, yeah, I'd imagine. Yeah, to get into his creativity and right there. So, following robert's death, his coffin was carried by Samoans to the summit of Mount Vaea and it's spelt V-A-E-A. I'm pronouncing it Vaea, so hopefully that's right. It's reported that Robert died of a stroke, but according to research published in 2000, robert might have suffered from something else that I'm unable to pronounce. I have tried and it's just not going well for me right now, so I'm going to simplify it by its initials of hht.
Speaker 1:So if anybody wants to find out any more about that, then go down that rabbit hole yeah and maybe you can pronounce it, because I can't so after his wife fanny's passing, her daughter took her ashes to samoa and the ashes were interred next to robert on top of the mountain yeah which is quite kind of almost poetically romantic, isn't it that they actually interred together?
Speaker 1:jacqueline hyde was no doubt inspired by the general interest in dual personalities, so that duality of of human nature, yeah, and real life events and people. So the relationship with um, between good and evil, is explored quite extensively in jeline Hyde as well. A lot of crime happened in the Victorian era due to poverty, overcrowding and the working class often being desperate for money and food. Due to the class divide, which was even more prevalent in those times, murderous events were apparently not that common. I actually feel that murderous events were really common in common.
Speaker 1:So I actually feel that murderous events were really common in the victorian I thought so yeah, actually sort of looking into it, I think a lot of it was sensationalized in penny dreadfuls. Yeah, because in the victorian era you didn't just have a murderer, you had chuck the ripper. You know you had quite prolific murderers yeah that no doubt makes it seem like it happened more than it did. I think Victorians also had a desire to learn about scientific methods. Yeah, curious, curious, um, like incredibly curious during the victorian era. So dr jekyll transformed into mr hyde by drinking a potion.
Speaker 1:Yes, little spoiler alert there yeah and therefore releasing the murderer from within. It kind of made me think quite a lot about whether or not this character would have had murderous intentions, yeah, and the um, the potion kind of created that alter ego side of him that was able to go on that murderous spree.
Speaker 1:Yeah, or whether the potion caused it yeah, whether it was within them already yeah, so I think that duality of nature, I think that we're all capable of of um, good and monstrous deeds, you know, depending on our beliefs and our morals. And, yeah, no doubt, our lifetime you know what we experienced during our lifetime. And, um, yeah, drinking that potion just took those barriers down and, yeah, released the murderous intentions off. He went. Yeah, off, he went off, he went. Indeed, evan, yes, now there are over a hundred film versions and a multitude of stage and radio adaptations of jekyll and hyde and, of course, all the parodies. Yeah, there are a lot of comic based on Jekyll and Hyde. Um, growing up in the 1970s, I feel like Jekyll and Hyde parodies featured at least sort of every couple of weeks on tv yeah, yeah the first movie adaptation was a 1908 silent horror, so the silent film era ended around 1930.
Speaker 1:And this silent film? I actually didn't know that it existed, so I'm going to try and see if I can find that anywhere.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I think that's quite kind of dramatic, yeah, that would be really good to watch.
Speaker 1:I just of dramatic yeah, just thinking about it, robert wrote his own epitaph. It's a poem called requiem, which is engraved on his tombstone and it reads under the wide and starry sky, dig the grave and let me lie. Gladly did I live and gladly die, and I laid me down with a will this be the verse you grave? For me, here lies where he longed to be. Home is the sailor home from the sea and the hunter home from the hill, which just brings even more power to those words, knowing that he wrote that himself and he wrote in in the throes of his last days yeah, amazing absolutely incredible.
Speaker 1:A little bit about the life of um robert louis stevenson there, who's the author of the strange case and of jackal, dr jackal and mr hyde. Yeah, and I think you've got a bit more information about the actual radio drama feature on the channel, haven't you ever?
Speaker 2:yeah, I do. Yeah, um, this is a weird circle adaptation. We've got like a few of those on the channel and the weird circle was a supernatural, horror and fantasy radio drama that aired from 1943 to 1945 and it was actually produced in New York and then it was like kind of like broadcast onto like other like radio stations all across the country. From that there was a total of 78 episodes and they were spread out over two seasons and this actual episode aired on the 28th of april 1945 and it was but practically towards the end because it was number 74. Um, so yeah, and I think this, well, they reach anywhere up to like half an hour, so this one's just under half an hour and the video was actually filmed of a lovely tree.
Speaker 1:That is me filming a lovely tree, with permission, in someone's garden. Yeah, yeah lovely.
Speaker 1:So these this, the point of this podcast is to inspire you with creativity, inspire your curiosity yeah, hopefully, to come and find out a bit more about what we do. So I'm a neurolinguistic programming coach and a business strategist. Evan's on the tech side yeah, exploring the tech. So this will. You will see us evolve over this year. Definitely give us evolve over this year as we continue to do this and bring in podcasts for the other youtube channels that we've got as well. So please do go and find melancholy mentor on youtube. If you've got any information back, checking or anything that you would like to add to anything that we say, or any suggestions, you're more than welcome to email us at info at melancholymentorcom and we'd love to hear from you. Yeah, and until then, bye, bye. Thank you for tuning in. Contact us at melancholymentorcom. Until next time, keep your minds open and stay curious.
