Watch the new trailer for the RSC’s ‘Hamlet: Hail to the Thief’ play – Rolling Stone UK

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30 April 2025 11:31 AM
By Nick Reilly
Ahead of the premiere of Hamlet: Hail To The Thief, a new trailer has been shared for the new interpretation of Shakespeare, set to the music of Radiohead.
The show is currently in previews in Manchester and features the sounds of the band’s seminal 2003 album Hail To The Thief, with frontman Thom Yorke deconstructing the record into a score that elevates the play and is performed by live musicians.
Now, the new trailer offers a sneak peak at the brooding and atmospheric production ahead of its first performance.
Speaking to Rolling Stone UK, Yorke recently explained how he was initially sceptical of the idea when approached by co-director Christine Jones.
“I never associated music favourably with Shakespeare,” said the Radiohead frontman. “I saw his work as something totemic, so applying our music to it initially seemed a kind of sacrilege. But I’m always up for a little bit of sacrilege.”
“It’s very much broken down, shattered pieces of glass,” he explains of the album’s re-interpretation, “glued back together.”
“Shakespeare’s great tragedy and Radiohead’s seminal album collide for a feverish experience that fuses theatre, music, and movement,” a synopsis teases.
“In this frenetic distillation of Shakespeare’s masterpiece, Elsinore has become a surveillance state and hectic runs in the blood of its citizens. Hamlet Hail to the Thief centres on Hamlet and Ophelia’s awakening to the lies and corruption revealed by ghosts and music. Paranoia reigns and no one is spared a tragic unravelling.”
Hamlet Hail to the Thief is running at Aviva Studios, home of Factory International, Manchester until 18 May 2025 before transferring to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford Upon Avon from 4 June – 28 June 2025.
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