Radiohead’s ‘Hail To The Thief’ to Be Soundtrack to New ‘Hamlet’ Production

A new production of Shakespeare’s play A small village will have a soundtrack from Radiohead’s 2003 album Hello thief.

Hamlet Hail to the Thief “we will see the words of Shakespeare and the album of Radiohead illuminate one
another in an exciting new way as the music becomes a critical part of the narrative,” a press release reveals. The production will feature a cast of 20 musicians and actors performing the album live on stage during the performance.

Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke collaborated on the production with Tony and Olivier Award winner Christine Jones and Olivier Award winner Steven Hoggett.

Hamlet Hail to the Thief will open at Aviva Studios Manchester, home of Factory International, in Manchester on 27 April and will run there until 18 May 2025. The production will then transfer to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford Upon Avon, England from 4 to 28 June 2025. Tickets for the production go on sale on 2 October; more details can be found here.

Speaking of new findings Hello thiefYorke said in a statement that it was an “interesting and terrifying challenge.” He added: “Adapting the original music Hello thief to a live performance with actors on stage to tell this story that is being told forever, using its familiarity and sounds, pulling them in and out of context, seeing what resonates with the underlying regret and paranoia A small villageusing the music as a “presence” in the room, watching it collide with the action and the text. Blending one into the other.”

Hello thief was released in 2003 by the British band in the context of the fallout from the invasion of Iraq and contained a critique of President George W. Bush’s post-9/11 “war on terror”. The album charted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 and No. 1 on the Official UK Albums Chart, and its cover, which was used on a promotional poster for the play, was created by frequent collaborator Stanley Donwood.

In a 2003 speech, Yorke said that the album’s lyrical content was influenced by “the increase in doublethink and the increase in general intolerance and madness, and the feeling that individuals were completely out of control of the situation” and that “the power of music gave me, I think, a license to explore all of those things, really”. It spawned three singles: “2+2=5”, “Go To Sleep” and “There, There”.

Jones, who previously worked with Hoggett on Harry Potter and the Cursed Childand a stage adaptation of the Green Day song American idiot said William Shakespeare’s play, written between 1599 and 1601, fits in with their love of the Radiohead album.

“Paying attention to the lyrics, I realized how many songs with Hello thief “to address the themes of the play,” says Jones. “There are incredible reverberations between the text and the album. For years, I’d wanted to see the play and the album collide in a piece of theatre; I eventually shared the idea with Thom, who was intrigued.

Radiohead has released its latest album Moon-shaped pool in 2016, and the band members have been working on new projects since then. Yorke and Jonny Greenwood’s The Smile will release their third studio album Cutouts on XL Recordings on October 4th.

The band’s bassist Colin Greenwood recently revealed that the band recently resumed rehearsals, but did not share any news about an upcoming show.