Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke collaborates on a new version of Shakespeare’s Hamlet

Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke and celebrated directors, Steven Hoggett and Christine Jones, will join forces for a frenetic adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, haunted by Radiohead’s celebrated 2003 album Hail to the Thief, which will receive its world premiere at Manchester’s Aviva Studios from 27 April-18 May 2025 before transferring to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon in June.

In this fast-paced distillation of the play, Shakespeare’s words and Radiohead’s album illuminate one another in thrilling new ways as the music becomes a critical part of the narrative.  Personally reworked by Yorke, the deconstructed album will be performed live onstage by a cast of 20 musicians and actors.

Thom Yorke said: “This 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. Ghosting one against the other.”

Elsinore has become a surveillance state and hectic runs in the blood of its citizens. Hamlet Hail To The Thief centres on Hamlet and Ophelia’s awakening to the lies and corruption in Denmark, gradually revealed by ghosts and music. Paranoia reigns and no one is spared a tragic unraveling.

Hail to the Thief (2003) is Radiohead’s sixth studio album with singles including ‘There There’, ‘2+2=5’ and ‘Go to Sleep’. Recorded in the wake of the September 11 attacks and the subsequent ‘War On Terror’, the album underscores a period of paranoia, fear and anxiety, using a striking mix of rock, unsettling sound experiments and lullaby piano ballad, with dystopian themes incorporating Orwell inspired lyrics and theatrical, Brothers Grimm style fables.

Bringing together the innovation of Factory International and the Royal Shakespeare Company, Hamlet Hail To The Thief is equally at home in a vast music warehouse space and on an iconic theatre stage.

Hamlet Hail To The Thief is adapted from Shakespeare’s Hamlet by Christine Jones with Steven Hoggett, directed by Steven Hoggett and Christine Jones, with music by Radiohead, orchestrations by Thom Yorke, arrangements by Justin Levine, set design by AMP Collective featuring Sadra Tehrani, sound by Gareth Fry, music supervision by Tom Brady, video design by Will Duke, lighting by Jessica Hung Han Yun, costumes by Lisa Duncan, and casting by Charlotte Sutton CDG for the RSC.

Casting is to be announced in due course.

Tickets go on sale at 10am on 2 October for Manchester here and Stratford-upon-Avon here.