BBC updates ‘Jekyll’ story but keeps it in the family

A classic tale about the duality of the human soul gets a 21st century, high-tech twist as BBC America premieres “Jekyll” Saturday.

The six-episode series, which begins with a two-hour installment, is a modern take on Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 novella, in which a London lawyer investigates strange happenings between his old friend Dr. Henry Jekyll and the enigmatic and dangerous Mr. Hyde.

In the end, the lawyer discovers they are one and the same, the result of a lab experiment that split Jekyll into two separate and opposite personalities.

After creating the British relationship series “Coupling” and writing for the new version of “Doctor Who,” Scottish-born Steven Moffat decided to take a fresh look at Stevenson’s iconic tale.

“Most people have seen a movie rather than read it,” he says. “I have actually read it, also probably saw it on television -- I forget which version. When I was quite young, I wrote a stage play my friends could do with Jekyll and Hyde.

“I was always, like most kids, excited by the idea that you could turn into somebody else, a bit of magic. It was just that, really. It’s one of those big, grand, daft stories that everyone wants a shot at.”

In bringing the story into the modern world, Moffat (who wrote the episodes and executive-produced with Beryl Vertue) turned Jekyll into Dr. Tom Jackman, a descendant of the original Dr. Jekyll. He’s played by James Nesbitt, who starred in Paul Greengrass’ “Bloody Sunday.”

Moffat wasn’t particularly interested in doing a period piece.

“To be honest,” he says, “the Victorian setting of the original is a mere incidental fact of when Robert Louis Stevenson happened to be writing it.

“Whenever you do a period piece on television or in the movies, it becomes about the period. It becomes about the lovely frocks and the hansom cabs, and that’s really not right.”