IF one did not already find Radiohead’s music challenging enough, picture the band’s notoriously difficult album Hail to the Thief being adapted as accompaniment to a stage performance of a literary classic.
Intrigued? Well, this project is set to take off the ground with lead singer Thom Yorke has worked with designer and director Christine Jones and director and choreographer Steven Hoggett to create a new adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
According to the band’s social media site, the songs from Hail To The Thief have been deconstructed and remoulded into a score to serve the play, to be performed by live musicians and cast members.
“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,” noted Yorke on Facebook.
Hail to the Thief was first released in 2003 and received lukewarm response but critics but the intervening years has seen fans proclaim it as an integral and important album in the Radiohead canon.
However, this is not the first time Radiohead’s music has crossed path with the Bard. A concert performance in Los Angeles in 2023 called Perchance to Dream presented a cyberpunk take on Hamlet using Radiohead’s music. The band also provided a song for Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 film version of Romeo and Juliet starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. Exit Music (for a Film) was used, as the title suggests, over its end credits. The movie also featured their song Talk Show Host.
No casting has yet taken place but Radiohead fanatics take note. Although the world premier is set to take place only in April next year, tickets go on sale today underlining the anticipated greater demand due to Yorke’s involvement.
Hamlet Hail to the Thief is schedued to play at Aviva Studios, Manchester, home of Factory International, from April 27– May 18, 2025, before moving to the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon from June 4–28, 2025.
