Well it won't cheer you up, that's for sure, given the plot of the Robert Louis Stevenson novel on which this musical is based. But it should certainly impress you as a showcase for the wealth of talent with which the professional British musical theatre is blessed nowadays.

The cast of this show are clever, gifted, hard-working people. There isn't a duff performer among them. They make the very most of material which, if we were talking football, would probably be not quite in the Premier League. Les Mis this ain't, although it often seems that it's trying to be.

At first hearing there are maybe three key songs from the combined talents of lyricist Leslie Bricusse and composer Frank Wildhorn, with This Is the Moment as the show's own big moment. The rest is listenable but uninspiring yet could perhaps grow on you if you see several performances.

There's a splendid, gloomy, abstract sort of set which works very well to create the menacing atmosphere of a Victorian London being terrorised by a crazed killer. And there are some accomplished ensemble numbers from the cast.

But the main performing credits must, of course, go to the people in the key roles: Shona Lindsay as Lisa Carew, the girl to whom Dr Jekyll is betrothed, and Louise Dearman as Lucy Harris, the prostitute Mr Hyde terrorises - and Paul Nicholas as the doctor whose scientific experiments curse him into becoming the combined title roles.

This show is Victorian melodrama set to music, and Nicholas makes the most of it as he twitches, growls, groans and uses a voice which shifts an octave or so during the transformations between the two people his character has become.

It's an absorbing tale - perhaps told, of necessity, at too cracking a pace - about the conflict within us all between good and evil. On the whole, there's more good than bad in this show.