10 September 2025
Steamy. Sexy. Sensual. If there is a sexier show in the West End than Born With Teeth, I have yet to see it.
Two of Englnd’s most famous playwrights walk into a tavern… and sparks immediately fly. This stunning new period play by American academic Liz Duffy Adams portrays rivals William (Will) Shakespeare and Christopher (Kit) Marlowe as hot and horny young bucks knuckling down to collaborate on a new play, although leather-clad and lusty Marlowe is keener on getting frisky than conjugating verbs.
It opens to a pumping soundtrack and close ups of screaming mouths and bared teeth on a giant flickering video screen, then a window opens on Shakespeare (Edward Bluemel – A Discovery of Witches, Killing Eve) and Marlowe (Dr Who star Ncuti Gatwa) hanging high and being tortured as spies. This was a time when England was very much a police state “with more spies than crimes “ – dramatically realised in Joanna Scotcher’s vivid set framed by hundreds of dazzling spotlights – only for Bluemel to enter stage left and reveal with a cheeky grin, “of course that never happened”.
It’s fair to say we don’t know if any of the events in this brisk romp happened as fact. Did the famous pair ever collaborate? And were they lovers? Who can say with any accuracy. But it’s a fun premise and produces theatrical fireworks and oodles of sexual tension.
The temperature inside the Wyndhams theatre quickly soars sky high as the hormonal hunks are thrown together in the Elizabethan equivalent of a 21st century TV writers room – lodgings at the local tavern – to write Shakespeare’s Henry VI. Shakespeare has banned the bar staff from entering and lubricating Marlowe’s whistle with gin – it appears he tossed off Tamburlaine and Edward the Second while three sheets to the wind.
Sexual predator Marlowe has more front than Selfridges – “who do you f***: boys or girls?” – and the arrogant swagger and style of a rock star, while Shakespeare is a tad provincial, uptight and diligent when it comes to work.
Kit’s quill is way bigger than Will’s (he caresses it lovingly, all the while constantly goading bisexual Shakespeare – married with kids back home in Stratford Upon Avon – to succumb to his sexual overtures); he’s overtly gay, feline and dangerous. At one point he actually rips off his white shirt to reveal a gym-toned chiselled torso to die for then tilts the massive oak table they are working on and effortlessly bench presses it above his head.
Over a fun 90-minute cat and mouse game, the two pursue each other round this table, fighting over and dropping lines that will make it into future plays – the play’s title “born with teeth” comes from William Shakespeare’s 3 Henry VI (Act 5, Scene 6), where a prophet describes the deformed infant Gloucester (who will become Richard III) as being born with teeth to signify he will “bite and growl and play the dog” and to foreshadow his villainous nature and ambition.
No spoilers from me but Shakespeare does offer a tender “come live with me and be my love” speech but we know it’s not to be and Marlowe will die tragically in a pub fight in Deptford, probably related to is espionage activities.
By act 3, London is firmly in the grip of disease and espionage paranoia. Bluemel makes an entrance in a plague doctor’s outfit, removed to reveal a fabulous braided jacket. Shakespeare’s fashion sense has soared along with his fortunes, despite Marlowe’s put down that he rather than Will will be remembered as England’s greatest playwright.
RSC joint-chief Daniel Evans – last seen in the Swan Theatre face down in a subteranean lake taking a hot poker up the derriere as the star of Marlowe’s Edward II – has directed a steamy star-led production that fizzes and flares with theatrical energy. Highly recommended.
