Last year, Hamlet Hail to the Thief—an adaptation of Shakespeare’s eternal classic, Hamlet, set to Radiohead’s politically charged 2003 album, Hail to the Thief—made its world debut in Manchester, England. Now, after completing an additional run at the historic Royal Shakespeare Company, the play will get its London premiere at the Barbican Theatre from October 31 through January 23.
Hamlet Hail to the Thief is directed and adapted by Christine Jones and Steven Hoggett, with Thom Yorke reworking and orchestrating Hail to the Thief songs with a cast of 20 musicians and actors. Samuel Blenkin will reprise his role as Hamlet alongside Ami Tredrea as Ophelia.
“I’m into finally bringing Hamlet Hail to the Thief to London, and to the Barbican of all places!” Yorke wrote in a press release. “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.”
In his review for Pitchfork, contributor Daniel Dylan Wray noted how the play’s themes of paranoia and grief dovetailed naturally with the music’s similar topics: “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.”
Read Pitchfork’s 2025 concert review of Radiohead’s first show in eight years.
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