(seen at the afternoon preview performance on 27th September 2025).
A line from “Henry IV, part III.” So good Shakespeare (Edward Bluemel) and Marlowe (Ncuti Gatwa) fight at quill-point to use it. A quirky line, best and quirkiest scene in this play, born of a quirky idea by American writer Liz Duffy Adams.
She nearly gets away with it too, if it wasn’t for those meddling quips. Of which there are too few interesting enough to drive the idea to a particularly satisfying conclusion.
If we buy into the concept that the two men wrote together and that betrayal became inevitable, then this play has almost enough credibility to compensate for its lack of historical verification.
The Royal Shakespeare Company and Liz Duffy Adams believe we will. Thus they take this massively brave step to present this idea in London.
Joanna Scotcher’s set design is an unoriginal “grid of stage lanterns” wall on three sides, a large wooden table and chairs with a 21st century red button on one leg. We also get some weird video projections where simply projecting the date will do.
In keeping with the frenetic visuals, the table and chairs change position almost as often as the actors.
Costumes are as expected too, the ‘plague doctor outfit’ head oddly more like a World War Two gas mask.
Director Daniel Evans manages to stage key moments out of site of the “high numbers” front stalls, when a little more attention to blocking could have prevented easily the error. He also opens on an image which is so designed to make an impact, that the monkey only added it to this opinion in second editing, it was that memorable.
For the rest, the first scenes fizz with enthusiastic creativity, the final ones three years later slowing time appropriately.
Gatwa and Bluemel clearly have fun. Gatwa is deep into unpredictable Kit. Murky lifestyle and associates, heretical beliefs and grudging acknowledgement of genius. More than forgiven for his Wilde work earlier this year at the National Theatre.
Bluemel has his own energy, and rather than taking Gatwa’s pace, chooses an individual route which provides beautifully delineated counterpoint. It allows the rather slim idea considerably more weight, as the dissonance provides sufficient fuel to power through the slower moments.
By the end, is the monkey convinced? Not really. The play is performed without the “tongue in cheek” it needs to be something it would truly consider. The final scene stretched credibility too far – asking us to accept at face value something which would have been well-recorded legend if true.
Had a British writer attempted it, no doubt the whole thing would have been closer to “The Upstart Crow” – faster and funnier, with greater warmth towards the protagonists and a real attempt to drill into the veneer and fill in details of a decaying relationship. *
As it stands, we have an interesting two-hander which just about avoids outlasting its welcome and suggests a pairing we would wish to see again, in a Stewart / McKellen way. That’s an even more promising idea, feels the monkey.
*C’mon, you didn’t expect the monkey to ignore dental jokes with a title like this, right?
