What do you get if you combine the greatest English writer with the greatest living English band?
Hamlet Hail to the Thief is undoubtedly a clunky title, but it does at least give a fair representation of what you’ll witness: Shakespeare’s Hamlet accompanied by reworked songs from Radiohead’s Hail to the Thief.
The unlikely crossover gets its London premiere at the Barbican in October, following sold-out shows at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford (the not-London one), and Aviva Studios in Manchester.
According to organisers:
In this fast-paced distillation of the play, Shakespeare’s words and Radiohead’s songs illuminate one another in thrilling new ways that fuse theatre, music and movement. Personally reworked by [Thom] Yorke, the deconstructed album is performed live onstage by a cast of musicians and actors.
The creative fusion sounds mouthwatering, and begs the question: what other combos might be possible? ‘The Taming of Kid A’? ‘Much Ado About The Bends’? Or perhaps other artists could get in on the act, like Julius Caesar’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, or the interminable ‘Twelfth Night at the Opera’.
Tickets for Hamlet Hail to the Thief go on sale to the public at 10am on Friday 26 June via this link, and will be in high demand. Cue puns about climbing up the walls for tickets.
Hamlet Hail to the Thief runs at Barbican Theatre, 31 October 2026 to 23 January 2027.
