Thom Yorke Adapts Radiohead’s Hail to the Thief for New Production of Hamlet

Radiohead’s pivotal, politically charged 2003 album, Hail to the Thiefwill take a Shakespearean turn on stage next spring, when Thom Yorke adapts it for a new production of Hamlet. Titled Hamlet Hail to the Thiefthe show will feature William Shakespeare’s text and the songs of Hail to the Thiefwhich have been reworked and orchestrated by Yorke for a cast of 20 musicians and actors.

Hamlet Hail to the Thief was adapted by director Steven Hoggett and Christine Jones, with arrangements by Justin Levine. Per press materials, the feverish piece will fuse movement, theater, and music into an all-new interpretation of the historic play. The new production depicts the Danish city of Elsinore as a hellish surveillance state, where paranoia and corruption plagues the reign of Prince Hamlet and Ophelia.

“This is an interesting and intimidating challenge!” Yorke said of the project in press materials. “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 Hamletusing the music as a ‘presence’ in the room, watching how it collides with the action and the text. Ghosting one against the other.”

Jones added:

The first Radiohead concert I ever saw was the Hail to the Thief tour in 2003. It changed my DNA. Not long after, I was reading Hamlet and listening to the album. Paying attention to the lyrics, I became aware of how many songs from Hail to the Thief speak to the themes of the play. There are 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. 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.

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.