Radiohead’s 2003 album Hail to the Thief is considered as one of the band’s most pivotal albums, now, Thom Yorke, the band’s main force, has adapted it for a new stage play of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, titled Hamlet Hail to the Thief.
According to reports, the show will feature William Shakespeare’s text and the songs of Hail to the Thief, which have been reworked and orchestrated by Thom Yorke for a cast of 20 musicians and actors. The show is set to premiere in the Spring of 2025.
Hamlet Hail to the Thief was adapted by director Steven Hoggett and Christine Jones, with arrangements by Justin Levine. Per press materials, the feverish piece will fuse movement, theater, and music into an all-new interpretation of the historic play. The new production depicts the Danish city of Elsinore as a hellish surveillance state, where paranoia and corruption plague the reign of Prince Hamlet and Ophelia.
“This is an interesting and intimidating challenge!” Yorke said of the project in press materials. “Adapting the original music of ‘Hail to The Thief’ for live performance with the actors on stage to tell this story that is forever being told, using its familiarity and sounds, pulling them into and out of context, seeing what chimes with the underlying grief and paranoia of Hamlet, using the music as a ‘presence’ in the room, watching how it collides with the action and the text. Ghosting one against the other.”
Hamlet Hail to the Thief will have its world premiere at Aviva Studios, a warehouse space in Manchester, England, from April 27 to May 18. It will then transfer to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, in Stratford Upon Avon, from June 4 to June 28.
