Marlowe & Shakespeare: Rivals or Collaborators?

Not Just the Tudors

History Hit

History

4.8 • 3K Ratings

🗓️ 25 September 2025

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb engages in a captivating conversation with award-winning dramatist Liz Duffy Adams about the new Royal Shakespeare production of her play Born With Teeth, which imagines a thrilling collaboration between William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe. Suzannah and Liz delve into the fiery dynamics of the two men's relationship and the influence of politics on their works.

Shakespeare and Marlowe existed under a time of oppressive royal censorship, when displeasing the crown would mean a trip to the Tower, or worse. How did they balance this struggle for truth and creativity amid the palpable danger?

Extracts from Born With Teeth by Liz Duffy Adams, performed by Ncuti Gatwa and Edward Bluemel, courtesy of Royal Shakespeare Company

MORE:

Murder of Christopher Marlowe

Shakespeare's Son Hamnet with Maggie O'Farrell

Presented by Professor Suzannah Lipscomb. The researcher is Max Wintle. Edited and produced by Rob Weinberg. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.

All music courtesy of Epidemic Sounds.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb.
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0:16.0	including my own recent two-part series, A World Torn Apart, The Dissolution of the Monastries, and enjoy a new release
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1:03.1	It's midnight. Again, you've got an early start. There's no more sheep to count, and your part of the
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1:29.9	Soundcore.com slash UK. Hello, I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb and welcome to not just the
1:41.1	Tudors from History Hit, the podcast in which we explore everything from Anne Boleyn to the Aztecs, from Holbein to the Huguenots, from Shakespeare to Samarise.
1:51.8	Relieved by regular doses of murder, espionage and witchcraft.
1:56.0	Not in other words, just the Tudors, but most definitely also the Tudors.
2:09.8	Thank you. in other words, just the Tudors, but most definitely also the Tudors. What happens when two of the most brilliant and dangerous minds of Elizabeth in England find themselves in the same room.
2:19.5	Christopher, Kit Marlowe, Cambridge Scholar, star of the London stage,
2:24.1	rumoured spy and writer of plays that blazed with ambition and heresy.
	...

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