Radiohead collaborate on new stage production of villagescheduled to premiere next spring in Manchester, England. The play, Hamlet Hail to the ThiefThe film is being adapted and directed by Christine Jones and Stephen Huggett and will feature reworked music from Radiohead's 2003 album, Salute to the thief.
The play is scheduled to run at Aviva Studios in Manchester from 27 April to 18 May 2025 before moving to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, where it is scheduled to run from 4 to 28 June 2025.
“In this rapid-fire adaptation of the play, Shakespeare’s words and Radiohead’s album illuminate each other in exciting new ways as the music becomes an essential part of the narrative,” a press release notes. “The deconstructed album has been personally reworked by Radiohead frontman Yorke and will be presented on stage by a cast of 20 musicians and actors.”
According to the film's synopsis, in the adaptation of Hamlet, Hamlet's home city of Elsinore has become a surveillance state with frenzied robberies in the blood of its citizens. Hamlet Hail to the Thief The play will focus on “Hamlet and Ophelia's awakening to lies and corruption in Denmark, which ghosts and music gradually expose. Paranoia reigns and no one escapes the tragic collapse.”
Salute to the thiefRadiohead's follow-up to sister albums Child A and amnesiacThe band celebrated its 20th anniversary last year. The 14-track album is a remarkably bizarre one, with Yorke once describing it as perfect for “sex”. It also marks the band's final album to be released on EMI.
“This is an interesting and scary challenge,” Yorke said in a statement. “Adapting the original music of Salute to the thief To perform live with actors on stage to tell this story that is forever being told, using its familiarity and its sounds, pulling it into and out of context, seeing what resonates with the underlying sadness and madness. village“Using music as a ‘presence’ in the room, observing how it collides with the event and the text. Hiding one from the other.”
“The first Radiohead concert I ever attended was on the Hail to the Thief tour in 2003,” Jones recalled. “That changed my DNA. Soon after, I was reading village And listening to the album. By paying attention to the lyrics, I realized how many songs from Salute to the thief “It speaks to the themes of the play. There’s a strange resonance between the text and the album. For years I’d wanted to see the play and the album collide in a theatrical piece; eventually I shared the idea with Tom, who was fascinated. I wasn’t sure what we would make, but I knew I wanted to make it with Stephen and continue to experiment and build on the work we’d done together over many years.”
“In order to communicate this vast narrative, we have found it useful and inspiring to look at movement, text, lighting, sound and music to achieve the complexities of storytelling,” Huggett added. “We hope that bringing such elements into play means that anyone who sees Shakespeare’s first work will find a variety of ‘ways’ to enjoy and appreciate how wonderful this play is.”
Tickets for both venues will go on sale on October 2 at 10 a.m. local time.
