Born With Teeth

Your Experience

Born With Teeth makes its West End premiere with a fierce theatrical bite, pairing two of Britain’s most electrifying actors in a reimagining of literary history. Ncuti Gatwa, fresh off his groundbreaking debut as Doctor Who and acclaimed for his turn in The Importance of Being Earnest, stars as the subversive and seductive Christopher Marlowe. Opposite him is Edward Bluemel, known for his scene-stealing roles in Killing Eve and My Lady Jane, playing a sharp-tongued, ambitious young Shakespeare. Together, they ignite the stage with a chemistry that is by turns witty, volatile, and hypnotic.

Written by award-winning playwright Liz Duffy Adams (Or, New Dramatists alum), the play unfolds over three clandestine meetings, where two literary giants size each other up in a heady mix of rivalry, flirtation, and political danger. Every exchange is a duel — of egos, ideologies, and desires — as the spectre of Elizabethan treason looms large. Directed by Daniel Evans, Co-Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company and Olivier winner for Sunday in the Park with George, this lean, electric two-hander is a tightrope walk between genius and self-destruction, where history is rewritten with heat and style.