After surviving the whirlwind of Doctor Who, the actor returns to the stage in ‘horny Elizabethan drama’ Born With Teeth. He and co-star Edward Bluemel discuss bust lips, hot pants and queering the Bard’s story
“I think of it as a very sexy, dangerous game of Elizabethan cat and mouse.” Ncuti Gatwa is describing his new project with the Royal Shakespeare Company, a two-hander about William Shakespeare and fellow playwright Christopher “Kit” Marlowe. In Born With Teeth, Will and Kit collaborate on a play about Henry VI – for “collaborate”, read flirt, fight and ruminate betrayal.
Gatwa plays Marlowe and Shakespeare is Edward Bluemel; the pair last worked together on TV’s Sex Education. Bluemel followed that series about horny teens with playing a vampire (A Discovery of Witches), an MI6 agent (Killing Eve) and a brooding lord (My Lady Jane), while Gatwa was cast as one of the Kens in the Barbie movie and starred in a little thing called Doctor Who….
So who are these characters? “It’s fascinating to dig into these men who were more than likely queer in different ways,” says Bluemel. “Marlowe wears his heart on his sleeve – plays like Edward II are brazen and brave depictions of queer love. Shakespeare is scared – he wants to talk about things, but via ancient Rome or picturesque Ephesus.” In the play, Will avers, “I want to hide in my work, like an outlaw in the forest.” Kit derides his colleague as “careful Will, who won’t”.
Marlowe, Gatwa declares, “dances with danger”. The play leans into his supposed career as an agent of Elizabethan spymasters, and the peril that brings for everyone in his orbit. Mistrust lends the dialogue an erotic shimmer – and neither knows who is being played. “How sincere is a snog?” grins Bluemel. “A question I ask myself after every snog…” ….