Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare were twin stars in Anthony Burgess’s intellectual and artistic firmament. Marlowe inspired work including his MA thesis on Marlowe’s Dr Faustus to the last novel published in his lifetime, A Dead Man in Deptford; and he absorbed Shakespeare too, inspiring the novels Nothing Like the Sun, Enderby’s Dark Lady, a biography, short stories, film scripts, a television series, songs, and even a ballet suite for full orchestra. Graham Woodroffe, Director of the Anthony Burgess Centre at the University of Angers, France, will talk about the influence of these two Elizabethan heavyweights on Burgess and his work, exploring what they brought to it and what Burgess contributes to our understanding of them.