An unusual new stage show will combine William Shakespeare’s Hamlet with Radiohead’s album Hail to the Thief, with the production debuting in Manchester in April before transferring to Stratford-Upon-Avon in June. Christine Jones, the show’s director, was inspired to create Hamlet Hail to the Thief after she noticed that both the play and album shared similar themes of moral corruption, decay and dysfunctional government. The new version of Hamlet will see Shakespeare’s words “illuminated” by the British band’s music. Hail to the Thief will be deconstructed and re-worked by Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and performed live by a cast of around 20 musicians and actors.
Jones came up with the idea shortly after the album’s release, listening to it and reading the play at the same time. “Paying attention to the lyrics, I became aware of how many songs from Hail to the Thief speak to the themes of the play,” she said. In a statement to BBC News, Yorke said adapting the music for live performance with the actors on stage was an “interesting and intimidating challenge”.
The original Hamlet has been adapted for the new production by Jones alongside Steven Hoggett, who is also directing. Producers describe it as a “feverish new live experience, fusing theatre, music and movement”. Organisers said the “fast-paced distillation” of the play would see Radiohead’s music become a critical part of the narrative.
Hail to the Thief, Radiohead’s sixth studio album, was recorded in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attack in New York and reflected a period of fear and political turmoil. The album explored dystopian themes with Orwell-inspired lyrics. Of writing the record, Yorke said: “I was listening to a lot of political programs on BBC Radio 4. I found myself – during that mad caffeine rush in the morning, as I was in the kitchen giving my son his breakfast – writing down little nonsense phrases, those Orwellian euphemisms that [the British and American governments] are so fond of.”
Set in Elsinore, which has become a surveillance state, the play centres on Hamlet and Ophelia’s awakening to the lies and corruption in Denmark, gradually revealed by ghosts and music. Cast details are yet to be announced
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