Filmmakers just can’t stop taking the lives of real-life icons and spinning stories about them. Shakespeare in Love is probably the most famous example, but now A Dead Man in Deptford – which will see Control**’s Sam Riley starring as Christopher “Kit” Marlowe{
Since little is known about the real life of the man who wrote plays such as The Tragical History of Dr Faustus and The Massacre at Paris, many rumours have cropped up about how he spent his time when he wasn’t hunched over a quill.
The most common, and one used by Anthony Burgess in his eponymous novel, is that Marlowe’s lustful, bar-hopping ways were matched by the fact that he was a royal spy for Elizabeth I, and that his death at the age of 29 was actually an assassination carried out by the English intelligence services of the time. Michael Elias has written the script based on Burgess' interpretation.
James Purefoy, Ray Winstone, Adam Sinclair and Eragon’s Ed Speleers are all set to star alongside Riley. Director Nick Copus, who has usually been found behind the camera for TV series such as the recent Day of the Triffids adaptation, will make the film his second crack at big screen directing after Ice, the futuristic environmental thriller that he’s busy finishing off.
A Dead Man In Deptford is scheduled to start shooting early next year. Probably not in Deptford, however.