Review: BORN WITH TEETH at the Wyndhams Theatre

Date: 10/09/25

Stars: 5

It’s not often you get to watch William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe sweat it out in a single pub backroom, but Liz Duffy Adams has decided that’s exactly the stage they deserve. Born With Teeth, directed by Daniel Evans at Wyndham’s, isn’t a history lesson so much as a locked-room experiment. What happens if you put two men who think they’re the cleverest in England together and then force them to collaborate on a play under the threat of censorship, betrayal and, quite possibly, death?

Ncuti Gatwa barrels through the door first, all swagger and danger, giving us a Marlowe who’s equal parts seducer and saboteur. He prowls, he teases, and within minutes he’s the sort of person you’d follow into trouble without meaning to. Opposite him, Edward Bluemel begins his Shakespeare with a quieter edge, the apprentice who looks a little overwhelmed, until slowly and almost slyly he starts to show his own teeth. Watching the two spar is half the fun — you can’t quite decide if they’re going to kiss, stab each other, or co-author a masterpiece.

The design team pushes hard on atmosphere. Joanna Scotcher’s set and costumes strip things back to a bare room but dress it with a distinctly modern sheen, while Neil Austin’s lighting doesn’t so much illuminate as interrogate, boxing the actors into corners and occasionally blinding the audience just to make sure we’re paying attention. It’s slick, it’s stylish, and sometimes it’s a little too much. There are moments when the tech insists on taking centre stage, when really the only fireworks needed are the ones already flying across the table.

Adams’s script is sharp and quick, tossing in enough literary nods to keep the Shakespeare buffs happy without losing the casual theatregoer. It’s funny, it’s sly, and it leans hard into the thrill of rivalry and flirtation. But if you’re looking for a deep excavation of religion, censorship or artistic legacy, you may be left wanting more. These weighty themes flicker around the edges but never quite take the spotlight. And then there’s the ending, which arrives with surprising abruptness, cutting things off just when you think another twist is coming.

Still, for all its rough edges, Born With Teeth is ninety minutes that crackle. Gatwa is magnetic, Bluemel gives the piece its emotional core, and together they turn what could have been a clever thought experiment into something you actually feel. It may not change the way you think about Shakespeare or Marlowe, but it does leave you grinning at the mess and brilliance of putting two egos in one room and watching them go. If theatre is meant to be alive, unpredictable and occasionally a bit sweaty, then this show is doing exactly what it should.

Born with Teeth plays at the Wyndhams Theatre until 1st November 2025, and tickets are available here: https://www.wyndhamstheatre.co.uk/whats-on/born-with-teeth