Radiohead revenge tragedy Hamlet Hail to the Thief sets London dates

Hamlet Hail to the Thief, an acclaimed stage production fusing Shakespeare’s tragedy with Radiohead’s sixth album, is to open at the Barbican theatre in London this autumn. The show had its world premiere at Aviva Studios in Manchester last year and then ran at the Royal Shakespeare theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon.

It is a co-production between Factory International and the Royal Shakespeare Company and was co-created by Radiohead frontman, Thom Yorke, and the directors Steven Hoggett and Christine Jones. Yorke reworked the 2003 album, which is performed live on stage by a cast of musicians and actors, the lyrics reinforcing themes of grief, despair and paranoia in the play.

Samuel Blenkin will return in the role of Hamlet. In his four-star review, Mark Fisher praised Blenkin’s "startling" performance as "a voice of a generation exasperated by the failures of his superiors" who has "as much to rail against the world about as Yorke and his band did in the aftermath of September 11 and the ascendancy of George W Bush".

radiohead, thom yorke, hamlet, barbican, london, manchester, royal shakespeare, samuel blenkin, steven hoggett, christine jones