Vain Glory was written for Peter Broughan by the late Alan Sharp, screenwriter of superb studio films like Rob Roy, Ulzana’s Raid, Night Moves and The Hired Hand.
This is a serial telling of the uproarious life of the brilliant Elizabethan writer Christopher Marlowe, a blisteringly uncompromising challenger of accepted social and artistic norms in both his life and work.
Marlowe – who also worked as a spy for the English crown – was openly atheist and homosexual at a time when such attitudes and behaviours could be punished by torture and death. He inevitably made many enemies during his colourful and breathtaking career through life.
His short span ended in a tavern brawl in Deptford, but the only contemporary artist who stands alongside Marlowe’s level of genius in that dark, golden age is William Shakespeare himself.
Vain Glory is being produced in association with Moonriver Content