Thom Yorke & The Royal Shakespeare Company Team On Contemporary ‘Hamlet’ Adaptation Scored By Radiohead’s ‘Hail To The Thief’
deadline.comRadiohead frontman Thom Yorke has teamed with Tony and Olivier Award-winning directors Steven Hoggett and Christine Jones to create a contemporary adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet scored by Radiohead’s 2003 album Hail to the Thief.
Titled Hamlet Hail To The Thief, the project will run at Aviva Studios in Manchester from 27 April – 18 May 2025 before transferring to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford, where it will run from June 4 – 28, 2025.
Described as a “fast-paced distillation” of the play, producers have said Shakespeare’s words and Radiohead’s album “illuminate one another” as Radiohead’s music becomes a central part of the play’s narrative.
The play is said to have been “personally reworked by Yorke.” The music will be performed live onstage by a cast of 20 musicians and actors. “This is an interesting and intimidating challenge,” Yorke said of the production. “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.
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