THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
By William Shakespeare, adapted by Thom Yorke (Co-Creator & Orchestrator), Christine Jones (Co-Creator & Co-Director) and Steven Hoggett (Co-Creator & Co-Director)
At Barbican Theatre, Silk St, London ED2Y 8DS until January 23, 2027
Hamlet Hail to the Thief has three co-creators because it blends three great elements – Radiohead’s Grammy winning album Hail to the Thief, Shakespeare’s great tragedy and some stunning choreography/movement direction from the man behind the physical theatre company Frantic Assembly. It all adds up to a fast paced (100 minutes), bracingly original distillation of the Bard’s masterpiece, which was first presented to great acclaim at the Factory in Manchester and then in Stratford-upon-Avon (the RSC is another co-producer). This is a show that will have ‘legs’ as Variety would put it.
It is not a musical but rather an expertly abridged take on the classic tragedy complemented with Radiohead’s wonderfully anxious music. The songs from Hail to the Thief are used sparingly and at times to overpowering effect such as a great mournful number in Ophelia’s ‘mad scene’. The 2003 album’s gloomy undertone is a great fit for a play about self-reflection and crippling procrastination.
A star is born in Samuel Blenkin, who couldn’t be more perfect in embodying the Gen Z angst of this modern Hamlet. The piece has a modern post-industrial setting and the scenography (by AMP feat. Sadra Tehrani) gives us a huge monochrome wall of speakers and frames inset with glass fronted sound boxes, as in a recording studio, for the brilliant 6-piece band under MD Tom Brady. It’s that very familiar rock stadium aesthetic – now perhaps too common in any show about music.
The cast are in androgynous black garments (perfectly matching the trendy first night audience I must add) but they’re on a charcoal set on a dark stage. You long for a speck of color and if you were hanging from the rafters you’d be squinting.
Blenkin’s interpretation is wise and worldly for a young soul. He doesn’t pathologize Hamlet and his verse readings are clear, unaffected, and relatable, without ditching the iambic pentameter or worse, fighting against it. Here, we watch an initially nebbish young lad, with his mop of dark hair, overcome his doubts, mature, and get energized by the need for revenge against his uncle the King, who’s usurped his father’s throne and married his mother.
The great Paul Hilton, who gets better with age, puts his Lancastrian lugubriousness to great use as the scheming King Claudius. His every pore screams “I’ve got to get rid of this kid” and he steals every scene he is in. Claudia Harrison is a dozily perplexed Gertrude and Brandon Grace a virile Laertes. Nicolas Tennant does wonders with Polonius, Claudius’s right hand man, for once presenting him as canny bureaucrat and not just a windbag. Christine Jones’ editing of his speeches are wonderfully judged, you get the loquaciousness without the rambling.
Steven Hoggett’s physical theatre work really emboldens the piece as does Jess Williams’ choreography. The movement and the music replace the text at crucial moments, as in a great pas-de-deux between Hamlet and Ophelia and in the mad scene which suddenly ends when Ophelia rolls into a grave you didn’t know was there. Ami Tredrea’s Ophelia is utterly mesmerizing giving her a modern agency without undermining the character.
Modern dress productions have always struggled with the climactic sword fight. Here it is presented like a lightning MMA fight but with knives. It’s brief and swift, like all the scenes, and all the better for it.
While Radiohead’s iconic sound provides the emotional hook for the piece it’s the ingenious filleting of a long text, combined with startlingly urgent and eye-catching use of physical theatre that will make this stay in the memory. Hamlet contains a multitude of course, but this show proves you can condense it without it losing the emotional punch.
