Thom Yorke to rework Radiohead album for new Hamlet stage production

Your support helps us to tell the story

Support Now

Find out moreClose

Our mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.

Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.

Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.

Louise Thomas

Editor

Radiohead front man Thom Yorke is to rework the band’s album Hail To The Thief for a new stage production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

The singer-songwriter has teamed up with directors Steven Hoggett and Christine Jones for the adaptation which is described as a “fast-paced distillation of the play” that will be “illuminated” by the music of the 2003 album.

Hamlet Hail To The Thief will stage its world premiere in Manchester in April before transferring to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon in June.

Yorke has said the project is an “interesting and intimidating challenge”.

“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,” he said.

“Ghosting one against the other.”

Tony and Olivier award-wining designer Jones conceptualised the idea after reading Hamlet not long after seeing the album performed in concert, leading her to see “uncanny reverberances between the text and the album”.

“For years I’ve wanted to see the play and album collide in a piece of theatre; eventually I shared the idea with Thom, who was intrigued,” she said.

“I wasn’t sure what we would make, but I knew I wanted to make it with Steven and continue experimenting and building on work we have done together over many years.”

She continued: “We’ve found that the play haunts the album, and the album haunts the play.

“Both reflect the internal disquiet and rage that result from despair – in particular despair arising from scrutiny of dominant power structures, whether within governments, communities, or families.

“The text and music probe us relentlessly to question what we are made of, and how to discern right from wrong.”

Yorke is working and deconstructing the 2003 Radiohead album, which will be performed live onstage by a cast of 20 musicians and actors.

The British rock band’s sixth studio album features singles including There There, 2+2=5 and Go To Sleep.

Recorded in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the album reflects a period of paranoia, fear and anxiety which followed.

It also explores dystopian themes with Orwell-inspired lyrics alongside experimental sounds and lullaby piano ballads.

Jones is the creator and artistic director of Theatre For One and director of New York immersive nightclub experience, Queen Of The Night, while Hoggett is a founder of Frantic Assembly and his credits include being the choreographer for The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time and Black Watch.

They previously worked together as choreographer and designer on Harry Potter And The Cursed Child, American Idiot and Let The Right One In.

Hoggett said: “To communicate this expansive narrative, we have found it illuminating and inspiring to look to movement, text, lighting, sound and music to achieve the complexities of the storytelling.

“We hope that bringing such elements into play means that anyone seeing their first ever Shakespeare will find a variety of ‘ways in’ to enjoy and appreciate what a spectacular play this is.”

Hamlet Hail To The Thief will run in Aviva Studios in Manchester from April 27 to May 18 next year before transferring to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford Upon Avon from June 4 to 28, with tickets on sale at 10am on October 2.