Recommended Reading: The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Many people believe that EVERY human being has the capacity for evil - it is simply that MOST of us know the difference between right and wrong, and the power of SOCIETY and MORALITY (and our awareness that everything has CONSEQUENCES) are enough to stop us giving into our 'evil side'. Many different cultures around the world believe in this balance - this yin/yang - within the human psyche, which ensures that we live our lives on an even keel. However, if we lost that 'self-control' - if the yang was stripped away and we wer left only with the yin - and if nothing we did had any consequences any more, imagine what horrible things we might be capable of...

This is exactly what happens in Robert Louis Stevenson's powerful, 19th Century short story, THE STRANGE CASE OF DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE. Dr Jekyll, a brilliant doctor and scientist, discovers a potion that unleashes within him a creature of complete and violent evil - but all he has to do is take another potion and he returns to the good, kind, gentle man he was before. Before long he becomes ADDICTED to the thrill of this experience, but what will happen if he can no longer control when he 'changes'? And what if he gets 'stuck' as Mr Hyde and can't get back?

This is a scary and sobering look at the human capacity for evil, and at the power TEMPTATION and ADDICTION can have over ANY one of us. And it is a short, quick and exhilerating horror/thriller too.

Finally, if any of you read this and want to borrow a modern film of the book on DVD, come and see me...

Here is a brief extract:

Nearly a year later, in the month of October, 18... , London was startled by a crime of singular ferocity, and rendered all the more notable by the high position of the victim. The details were few and startling. A maid-servant living alone in a house not far from the river had gone upstairs to bed about eleven. Although a fog rolled over the city in the small hours, the early part of the night was cloudless, and the lane, which the maid's window overlooked, was brilliantly lit by the full moon. It seems she was romantically given; for she sat down upon her box, which stood immediately under the window, and fell into a dream of musing. Never (she used to say, with streaming tears, when she narrated that experience), never had she felt more at peace with all men or thought more kindly of the world. And as she so sat she became aware of an aged and beautiful gentleman with white hair drawing near along the lane; and advancing to meet him, another and very small gentleman, to whom at first she paid less attention. When they had come within speech (which was just under the maid's eyes) the older man bowed and accosted the other with a very pretty manner of politeness. It did not seem as if the subject of his address were of great importance; indeed, from his pointing, it sometimes appeared as if he were only inquiring his way; but the moon shone on his face as he spoke, and the girl was pleased to watch it, it seemed to breathe such an innocent and old-world kindness of disposition, yet with something high too, as of a well-founded self-content. Presently her eye wandered to the other, and she was surprised to recognize in him a certain Mr Hyde, who had once visited her master and for whom she had conceived a dislike. He had in his hand a heavy cane, with which he was trifling; but he answered never a word, and seemed to listen with an ill-contained impatience. And then all of a sudden he broke out in a great flame of anger, stamping with his foot, brandishing the cane, and carrying on (as the maid described it) like a madman. The old gentleman took a step back, with the air of one very much surprised and a trifle hurt; and at that Mr Hyde broke out of all bounds, and clubbed him to the earth. And next moment, with ape-like fury, he was trampling his victim under foot, and hailing down a storm of blows, under which the bones were audibly shattered and the body jumped upon the roadway.