The Royal Shakespeare Company opens Hamlet Hail to the Thief at the Barbican Theatre in London on Oct. 31, according to their official website. It runs through Jan. 23, 2027.
The Royal Shakespeare Company and Factory International made the production, which returns after its world premiere at Aviva Studios in Manchester last year. Thom Yorke, Christine Jones, and Steven Hoggett dreamed up the show. Hoggett and Jones are both Tony and Olivier Award-winning directors. New rehearsal photos show the trio working with cast members.
The show adapts William Shakespeare’s Hamlet with music from Radiohead’s 2003 album Hail to the Thief. Yorke reworked the songs and arranged them himself. More than 20 musicians and actors play them live at every performance. Organizers bill the project as a “feverish new live experience, fusing theatre, music and movement,” according to NME.
The synopsis reads, “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.”
Samuel Blenkin returns as Hamlet. Ami Tredrea plays Ophelia, Paul Hilton takes on Claudius and the Ghost, Claudia Harrison is Gertrude, Alby Baldwin is Horatio, and Brandon Grace is Laertes. Felipe Pacheco, Romaya Weaver, Marienella Phillips, Nicolas Tennant, Merryl Ansah, Miles Barrow, Halim Diwani, and Gavin James round out the cast.
The original band is back in full. Ed Begley, Tom Brady, Jenny Clifford, Joe Downard, Shane Forbes, Meg Hill, Tom Knowles, and Adam Martin all return. Emilio Moreno Arias and Josephina Ortiz Lewis join as cover singers.
Radiohead released Hail to the Thief in 2003. Yorke has said the band never had Hamlet in mind when it made the record and songs such as “Go to Sleep.”
“I don’t not subscribe to the synchronicity thing,” Thom Yorke told The Observer last year. He added, “But, obviously, my initial reaction was, this is Hamlet, therefore it’s sacrosanct, it’s untouchable. You can’t. But the idea didn’t go away. It planted a little seed in my head.”
His work on the stage show led Radiohead to put out Hail to the Thief Live Recordings 2003-2009. The album gathers performances recorded in London, Amsterdam, Buenos Aires, and Dublin. “In the process of thinking of how to build arrangements for the Shakespeare Hamlet/Hail To The Thief theatre production, I asked to hear some archive live recordings of the songs,” Thom Yorke said, per XL Recordings.
Radiohead has also announced 21 shows for 2027. They will play Perth, Melbourne, and Sydney in Australia, then head to Saitama, Japan.
Listings and ticket info are on the official website.
