Val says: ‘It’s a gripping drama provoked by my long fascination with the death – and the life – of the electrifying Elizabethan theatre pioneer Christopher Marlowe. Without Marlowe, it’s fair to say Shakespeare would have struggled longer and harder to find his extraordinary voice, and what we know of the shoemaker’s son from Canterbury is tantalisingly incomplete. The myth of his death is that he died in a pub brawl over the bill. And that’s not just untrue — it makes no sense of what we do know about the dashing and brilliant playwright whose lines are part of the landscape of our lives – ‘Is this the face that launched a thousand ships?’ ‘Come live with me and be my love.’ ‘Whoever loved that loved not at first signt?’ I’ve been struggling to write this play for more than forty years, obsessing with finding the language and the structure to tell the story. And finally it’s going to be seen by an audience! You can see it for yourself at Pitlochry Festival Theatre on Monday 18th August at 2.30 and at the Edinburgh International Book Festival on Tuesday 19th August at 8pm in the Spiegeltent. It’s directed by Philip Howard and I’m hugely grateful to Deborah Dickinson and her team at Pitlochry and to Tam Zimet and her colleagues at Edinburgh International Book Festival for making it happen. But mostly, to Alan Cumming whose generosity and vision as the incoming director at Pitlochry has lit a fire underneath my words. I can’t wait.’