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Landmark research which rewrote accepted wisdom on Shakespeare’s collaborations with other writers has inspired a new Royal Shakespeare Company production to be staged in the West End this summer.

In 2016, Â鶹ӰԺ Leicester (Â鶹ӰԺ)’s Professor Gabriel Egan was part of a team of international editors who turned the

Professor Egan’s computational analysis of texts was key in providing the evidence that showed Shakespeare collaborated with other writers far more than was previously thought. In particular, it led to Christopher Marlowe being credited as co-author of Henry VI Parts 1, 2 and 3.

Media coverage in The Guardian inspired playwright Liz Duffy Adams to write the play called , which explores the dramatic relationship between William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe as rivals, collaborators and creative forces who shaped English literature.

Professor Egan said: “Writers deserve the credit for what they write, but by the time Shakespeare’s Henry VI plays were first published it was overlooked, or not known, that Marlowe had made major contributions to them.

"The Jack Cade rebellion in Part Two (Scenes 14-22), for instance, is widely admired by readers and often wildly successful in performance. Understanding them now as Marlowe’s achievement helps us see Shakespeare more vividly than ever as a man deeply engaged in the shared, collegiate, and inherently collaborative endeavour of dramatic art."

Born With Teeth, directed by RSC co-artistic director Daniel Evans, opens at Wyndham’s Theatre on August 13 and stars Doctor Who’s Ncuti Gatwa as Marlowe and Edward Bluemel from Killing Eve as Shakespeare.

Playwright Liz Duffy Adams said of the Guardian report: “I do remember the emotional impact it had on me. It’s not too much to say a thrill shot through me. It instantly created the context for the play I never knew I needed to write – and then I had to write.

“Instantly, it was a fully formed sense of those two in a room working together. What would that lead to? What would that be like?”

Some 23 academics from five countries were part of the original research, led by four professors as editors: Professor Egan, Professor Gary Taylor from Florida State University, Professor John Jowett of the University of Birmingham and Professor Terri Bourus, of Indiana University.

Thousands of pages were analysed to try to identify groups of words and phrases associated with certain writers. Combinations of words such as “glory droopeth”, for example, were unique to Marlow during the period.