Ncuti Gatwa And Edward Bluemel To Star In ‘Born With Teeth’ In West End

EXCLUSIVE: Doctor Who and Barbie’s Ncuti Gatwa and A Discovery of Witches and Killing Eve’s Edward Bluemel are headed straight into London’s West End for the European premiere of Liz Duffy Adams’ “cheeky, witty and flirty” play Born With Teeth, about an imagined meeting between bad-boy playwright Christopher Marlowe and a then-up-and-coming William Shakespeare.

The two hotshot Elizabethans were like the rock ‘n’ roll stars of their day. The jewel box Wyndham’s Theatre, the much sought after prestigious playhouse smack in the middle of the W.End, may never recover from the combined firepower of Gatwa and Bluemel, who both graduated with honors from Netflix’s Sex Education, which has of late become something of a finishing school for future stars.

Adams’ play is being directed, fittingly, by Royal Shakespeare Company co-artistic director Daniel Evans, who, as it happens, just completed a run playing Marlowe’s Edward II for the RSC at Stratford-upon-Avon. “So I’ve been saying his words for the last eight weeks,” Evans tells me in an exclusive interview.

Born With Teeth is set in 1591, a time when England, under the reign of Elizabeth I, was more like an oppressive police surveillance state with spies and lapsed Catholics and Protestants at every turn. Fear and paranoia abound. There’s a theory that Marlowe himself was a spy working for the crown: He’d already lured and betrayed dramatist Thomas Kyd. Now he wants the upstart Shakespeare under his ink-stained thumb. 

Born With Teeth has yet to play New York but has enjoyed much success since it originated at Houston’s Alley Theatre three years ago. The powerful show — which I’ve read but haven’t seen — played across the U.S. from the Guthrie in Minneapolis to the Asolo Repertory Theatre in Florida to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and then on to Berkeley, CA, where it was staged by the Aurora Theater Company in 2023.

Evans tells me that he and Adams have held line-by-line readings of the play and the dramatist has made amendments to her text. “And I dare say we’re treating it as a new play, Liz will keep working on it until opening night,” he says.

It will run at Wyndham’s for a limited 11-week season from August 13-November 1. The production is being produced by Matthew Byam Shaw and partners Nia Janus and Nick Salmon for Playful Productions, the RSC and Broadway’s Elizabeth Williams. 

If all goes well in London’s theatre-land, it’s likely to rock New York in 2026 or 2027, although Byam Shaw stresses that “there’s always a hope” of New York “but, first of all, let’s have a successful season at Wyndham’s and not get too big for our boots.”

However, he’s a canny dude and knows the lay of the land in NYC. After all, Playful, which he founded 15 years ago with Janis and Salmon, has a history of taking productions such as The Audience (which led to Netflix hit The Crown) and Frost/Nixon — both by penned by Peter Morgan — to Broadway.

For NYC, says Byam Shaw, “it needs razor-sharp actors and a razor-sharp production and then I think the play will fly there.” And it has all those qualities in Gatwa, Bluemel and Evans. 

Byam Shaw and his colleagues at Playful are also working with producer and theatre owner Nica Burns on The Fifth Step, starring Martin Freeman (Black Panther) and Jack Lowden (Slow Horses) at @sohoplace theatre in the W.End, and on many other shows which they either produce or general manage.

Without wishing to sound “twee,” Byam Shaw is of the view that Marlowe and Shakespeare “were the rock stars of their day.”

“Not only that,” he continues, “Marlowe died at 27 like Jimi Hendrix and all the rest of them, and therefore, there’s a really interesting story there.”

(To clarify: Marlowe was 29, but the point’s well made.)

Evans and Byam Shaw have collaborated on many shows before, plus Byam Shaw was on the panel that interviewed the actor-turned-director for his current post at the RSC, a job he shares with Tamara Harvey.

In the play, Marlowe and Shakespeare, the two preeminent writers of their generation, are thrown together in a secluded tavern to work on what would become Shakespeare’s history cycle trilogy Henry VI. “It’s cheeky, witty and flirty,” says Evans because “you get both of their personalities. Marlowe, the kind of star of the age, wildly flamboyant, and very naughty.

“And you get Shakespeare who’s at the start of his career, sort of quite shy, sometimes a bit diffident, but every now and then there’s a real glint of ambition,” Evans observes. 

“When you think of who Marlowe is, the danger of him, the wit of him, the energy of him. There is no better person than Ncuti. His charisma as an actor, his humor as an actor, his power as an actor. It’s everything that this script demands,” Evans states.

“It’s a kind of great sensuality that he has, and that’s Marlowe,” he beams. “And so I’m really overjoyed to be working with him,” he says as he cites how he was “blown away” when he saw him early on in Sex Education but also recently at the National Theatre in a pantomime-inspired production of The Importance of Being Earnest.

Gatwa returns for the new season of Doctor Who on Saturday, April 12, on BBC One, BBC iPlayer and Disney+.

Evans enthuses equally over Bluemel’s “brilliant TV work” which also incudes We Might Regret This, My Lady Jane and Belgravia: The Next Chapter. The actor’s now starring with Mia McKenna-Bruce, Freeman and Helena Bonham-Carter in Netflix’s lavish country house series The Seven Dials Mystery. It’s written by Broadchurch’s Chris Chibnall and directed by Chris Sweeney (The Tourist) and executive produced by The Crown’s Suzanne Mackie and Chris Sussman (Good Omens).

“Edward has amazing sensitivity for this part,” Evans relays.

“He has a kind of incredible charm, likeability, and also very intelligent. So again, for our play, he really suits Shakespeare at the beginning of his career. Clearly being able to admire Marlowe and see what Marlowe’s doing. And thinking all the time, ‘Oh, I might be able to out-Marlowe Marlowe.’ So the two of them together, honestly, it’s a really thrilling combination.”

Full rehearsals start in July. The production’s designed by Olivier Award-winning Joanna Scotcher, lighting design by Olivier- and Tony-winning Neil Austin. Casting director is by Charlotte Sutton. Negotiations for other members of the creative team are ongoing.

The RSC’s currently enjoying a hit at the Gillian Lynne Theatre with a transfer of the utterly charming My Neighbour Totoro, based on Studio Ghibli’s animated classic.

There are also efforts to bring Edward II — with Evans starring — into London.

But right now, he’s pretty busy.