I know!! I know!! It is WHIPLASH from “the life- and thus world-changing power of theatre” to “he wouldn’t have been that hard to track down!!”.

She might well EAT them

Marlowe would have ROCKED being Lope de Vega. Or would he have got into a series of unnecessary street fights, called Jesus gay, then got stabbed in the eye, but this time in Spanish???

Oh no, I think it’s embarrassing and ignorant and whiffs of snobbery and classism, and that it’s a shame some good people got rolled up in it. As stupid hobbies go, I can’t get angry about it the way I do about blood sports, but the world would be better off without both.

I suppose because I’ve never seen a theory which acknowledges collaboration as a practice?? And I always assume Sexy Not Dead Marlowe must be predicated on either Bimbo Shakespeare or Stolidly Uggo Shakespeare. These people don’t LIKE Shakespeare, after all.

The other theories are not merely stupid, classist, ignorant, wilful etc - like the Marlovian one - but they’re also incredibly boring. I GET the appeal of sexy spy boyfriend not being dead. I cannot imagine caring enough about the other candidates. Or any of the counting 46 words stuff.

Marlovians are my favourite denomination of doubter because in the absence of evidence they’ve just been swayed by centuries of accrued historical sexiness and I kind of love that for them? It’s such a stupid theory and I assume they pick it because we collectively think Marlowe was fit.

Oh my god seriously???? Yeah there’s a post-NICU parents group in Ox, snd a FB group which is the least echo chamber I’ll ever be in. And Alistair Petrie, who I met when pregnant and is an ambassador for Borne and sent me the sweetest voice notes while it was all grim. And then we did Hamlet.

See this is the good stuff! Great people born early!

Also, I have met amazing people - who were premature or who had premature babies! We are a great, eclectic, huge club.

Collecting and noting premature people and their parents has been a huge joy in this. I did think as early as HDU “I’m sure Iona was early…”. An actor I worked with recently was one of TRIPLETS born at 30 weeks and stood my interrogation with great kindness and patience (they’re all fine).

(The presence of Gorka and Amy)