Hamlet Hail to the Thief London is confirmed: the Radiohead-scored adaptation of Shakespeare’s play opens at the Barbican Theatre on 31 October and runs through 23 January, bringing one of the more unlikely theatrical propositions of recent years to the capital for the first time.
From Manchester to the Barbican: How Hamlet Hail to the Thief Got Here
The production made its world debut in Manchester before moving to the Royal Shakespeare Company. According to Variety, it played to sold-out houses at both the RSC and Aviva Studios, home of Factory International. That run of success is what propels the show south to one of London’s most culturally loaded venues.
The premise is exactly what it sounds like: Shakespeare’s Hamlet set against Radiohead’s politically charged 2003 album, Hail to the Thief. Directed and adapted by Christine Jones and Steven Hoggett, the production features Thom Yorke reworking and orchestrating the album’s songs across a cast of 20 musicians and actors. Samuel Blenkin reprises his role as Hamlet, Ami Tredrea returns as Ophelia, and, as confirmed in a Ballet CoForum press release, Paul Hilton takes on the dual role of Claudius and the Ghost.
On paper it reads like a collision engineered by a sixth-form drama student on a good day. In practice, it has clearly landed with audiences and critics alike.
Yorke on Bringing Hamlet Hail to the Thief to London
Yorke has spoken about the project in terms that suggest genuine surprise at how it cohered. In a press release, he wrote: ‘I’m into finally bringing Hamlet Hail to the Thief to London, and to the Barbican of all places!’ He continued: ‘It is fascinating and very strange to me how this came to life and how it has worked. When it revealed itself to us over time I was shocked, having never had this kind of experience before. I am happy for it to be seen by a wider audience in such an intense space.’
That phrase, ‘an intense space’, is doing real work. The Barbican’s main theatre is not an easy room. It seats over 1,100 people, carries a particular acoustic weight, and has a way of exposing productions that are not fully formed. The fact that Yorke seems to relish the prospect, rather than hedge around it, says something about the confidence the company has built through the Manchester and RSC runs.
The pairing of the material makes a kind of instinctive sense once you sit with it. Hail to the Thief was always preoccupied with surveillance, paranoia, and political dread, recorded in the shadow of the Iraq War and a post-9/11 media landscape that felt like it was corroding in real time. Hamlet is, at its core, a play about a man undone by suspicion, grief, and a system rotting from the inside. The overlap is not forced.
Pitchfork contributor Daniel Dylan Wray, reviewing the production, put it plainly: ‘This project really doesn’t have any right to work, or make quite as much sense as it does. But it is an absorbing, heart-racing, and thrilling production that gracefully utilizes this music to co-exist within powerful dramatic depictions of grief, fear, madness, and death.’
That is a strong set of words from someone clearly not predisposed to handing out easy praise. The sold-out RSC and Aviva Studios runs back it up with box-office fact.
For London audiences who missed the Manchester world premiere or the RSC run, the Barbican Theatre engagement is the first and currently the only chance to catch Hamlet Hail to the Thief in the capital. With a 20-strong cast of musicians and actors, a reworked Thom Yorke score, and a near-perfect critical record so far, it is the kind of show that will sell out before most people have finished arguing about whether it should work.
