Home to all time classic single ‘There There’ and a handful of other top tier tunes, 2003’s Hail to the Thief isn’t quite Radiohead’s Hamlet-level masterpiece, but it’s definitely, say, their Measure for Measure – a broodingly memorable work that you rarely regret an encounter with.
What does this tortured analogy mean? Long story short, Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke has taken a break from Radiohead’s lengthy break – they’ve not released an album since 2016, though Yorke has been busy with spin-off project The Smile – to join forces with the Royal Shakespeare Company and Manchester’s Factory International to create a new version of Hamlet. Dubbed Hamlet Hail to the Thief, it will feature live performances of the brooding songs from the record, as rearranged for a company of 20 actors and musicians by Yorke himself.
Quoth Yorke: ‘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’.