Life
Born With Teeth review: ‘hollow as a crown’ ★★
It is odd that director Daniel Evans has chosen this work, which isn’t really a history play at all, for his inaugural production as co-artistic director of the RSC
September 12, 2025 13:27
It is odd that director Daniel Evans has chosen this work, which isn’t really a history play at all, for his inaugural production as co-artistic director of the RSC
September 12, 2025 13:27This didn’t happen” admits William Shakespeare (played by Killing Eve’s Edward Bluemel). We have just seen him and fellow playwright Christopher Marlowe (Doctor Who’s Ncuti Gatwa) hanging from ropes apparently being tortured by Queen Elizabeth’s anti-Catholic secret service.
That it didn’t happen comes as a relief. But as the two writers set to work on what would become the first of the three parts of Henry VI, this two-hander by American playwright Liz Duffy Adams turns out to be less of a history play and as hollow as a crown.
Odd then that director Daniel Evans has chosen the work, previously seen in the US, for his inaugural production as co-artistic director of the RSC.
The year is 1591 and the land is rife with paranoia as Elizabeth’s agents see Catholic conspiracy everywhere. Meanwhile Will has been invited by the established and establishment playwright Marlowe to collaborate on work and possibly spying. Not that his career – famously a mix of subterfuge, writing and man-about-town hedonism – needs the unknown Shakespeare to give it a lift.
Though they are the same age it is “Kit” who has several muscular hits to his name such as Tamburlaine (the dissection of tyrannical power so memorably performed by the late Antony Sher in his prime). Will has only written a relatively modest play on similar themes called Richard III (which, yes Sher was also unforgettable in).
Despite the period dress, the production is viscerally 21st century. The lingo is sweary-modern, and the two-hander is performed in front of three walls studded with spot lights
Despite the period dress, the production is viscerally 21st century. The lingo is sweary-modern (“Who do you f*ck, boys or girls?” asks Kit) and the two-hander is performed in front of three walls studded with spot lights. Scenes are separated with deliberately glitchy projections giving the 90-minute evening an electric though not really dramatic charge.
However, what makes the show more modern than the design and Duffy’s admittedly witty dialogue is that the relationship, and therefore the entire play, is defined by Marlowe’s eventually successful attempts to seduce William.
Gatwa’s predatory leather-clad Kit, who prowls about the writing desk like a panther, is entertaining to begin with and tedious thereafter. Bluemel is excellent as the diffident and eventually more dynamic of the duo.
The spying, intrigue and danger that goes with being a playwright at a time when every word might be interpreted as treason – in other words the stuff that we know for sure actually did happen – is given relatively short shrift.
Born With Teeth
Wyndham’s Theatre
To get more from Life, click here to sign up for our free Life newsletter.