Born With Teeth

Winter 1591. It is a dangerous time for artists: the country is under a police state, shot through with conspiracy and paranoia. In the backroom of a pub, writing sensations Kit Marlowe and Will Shakespeare are forced together in a creative union. Alone, with the table as their stage and battlefield, they sharpen their pens – and let their genius fly. Across three secret meetings, the rivals duel and flirt like young men with everything to lose. And with spies everywhere, betrayal comes knocking at the door.

Marking its West End premiere this summer, Liz Duffy Adams’ Born With Teeth is a radical imagining of the relationship between two literary icons at odds with their time. RSC Co-Artistic Director (formerly Artistic Director at Chichester Festival Theatre) Daniel Evans directs Ncuti Gatwa (BBC’s Doctor Who, The Importance of Being Earnest) and Edward Bluemel (Killing Eve, Sex Education) as the poets who square off in a game of wits, words, and powerplay. Born With Teeth has a strictly limited 11-week season at the Wyndham’s Theatre.