History Play

What if Christopher Marlowe staged his own death, fled to the Continent and went on to write the works we now attribute to Shakespeare ? Working with hard facts and a healthy dose of conjecture, History Play questions the purpose of biography in a stunning imaginative narrative. As he ruffles the ruffs of a post-Calvinist society, Marlowe travels into a continent tinged with panic, beset with secrets, yet delighting in erudition. Rodney Bolt's brilliant account is a wicked woodworm, subtly undermining the idol we have carved in Shakespeare's image - but it is also a rollicking and humorous tale of Shakepeare's unsettled times.