‘A steamy wrestle’: Guardian article inspires play on Shakespeare and Marlowe collaboration

Christopher Marlowe, right, is credited as co-writer with William Shakespeare of the three Henry VI plays. Composite: Getty

A Guardian report on William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe being literary rivals and collaborators has inspired a play that will be staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) in London’s West End this summer.

The RSC’s co-artistic director Daniel Evans will direct Born With Teeth by Liz Duffy Adams, an Irish-American playwright, who has imagined two of the greatest dramatists of all time working together, wrestling creatively, both envious and admiring of each other.