With the launch of the acclaimed Hamlet Hail To The Thief London run just around the corner, exclusive photos have been shared of behind-the-scenes rehearsals from the Radiohead meets Shakespeare epic. Check them out on NME below.
After receiving its debut in Manchester last year, the show is based on Radiohead‘s pivotal 2003 album ‘Hail To The Thief’ and sees frontman Thom Yorke collaborate with Tony and Olivier Award-winning directors Steven Hoggett and Christine Jones to create a contemporary adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet with the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Yorke has “personally reworked” and orchestrated ‘Hail To The Thief’ for a cast of over 20 musicians and actors that will be performed live during each show. The project is described as a “feverish new live experience, fusing theatre, music and movement”.
The synopsis for Hamlet Hail To The Thief reads: “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 in Denmark, gradually revealed by ghosts and music. Paranoia reigns and no one is spared a tragic unraveling.”
Now, with the show set to launch in London this month, new images show by Manuel Harlan give a behind-the-scenes look at rehearsals for the RSC’s Hamlet Hail to the Thief ahead of its London premiere at the Barbican Theatre from October 31, 2026 to January 23, 2027. See them exclusively first on NME below, and visit here for tickets and more information.
Yorke has said that despite apparent synchronicities the album shares with the Shakespearian tragedy, “Hamlet was not in our minds when we made the record.”
“I don’t not subscribe to the synchronicity thing,” he told The Observer last year. “You know, the one about The Wizard of Oz and ‘Dark Side of the Moon’; you watch a movie, turn the sound down, put on another soundtrack and something is revealed. But, obviously, my initial reaction was, this is Hamlet, therefore it’s sacrosanct, it’s untouchable. You can’t. But the idea didn’t go away. It planted a little seed in my head.”
Yorke revisiting the album for the production last year also led to Radiohead releasing ‘Hail to the Thief Live Recordings 2003-2009’, made up performances of the songs in London, Amsterdam, Buenos Aires, and Dublin. It also came as a way for the members to “re-evaluate their relationship” with their sixth studio album.
“In the process of thinking of how to build arrangements for the Shakespeare Hamlet/Hail To The Thief theatre production, I asked to hear some archive live recordings of the songs,” said Yorke.
“I was shocked by the kind of energy behind the way we played. I barely recognised us, and it helped me find a way forward,” he added. “We decided to get these live recordings mixed and released (it would have been insane to keep them for ourselves). It has all been a very cathartic process. We very much hope you enjoy them.”
Fans also noted how songs from ‘Hail To The Thief’ also featured heavily in their long-awaited 2025 comeback tour.
Guitarist Ed O’Brien confirmed that the band had plans to hit the road again in 2027 and beyond. “What we’re going to do is, every year we’re going to do a different continent, and we’re going to do 20 shows each year. No more, no less,” he said at the time. Radiohead then announced 21 shows next year, set to take place in Perth, Melbourne and Sydney in Australia, followed by a run in Saitama, Japan.
O’Brien also told NME this spring that the band had “not even talked about another record” yet. “Where did you get this idea that there’s another Radiohead record?” he asked us.
He reflected on the “amazing” tour, too, saying Radiohead were “so blessed that people want to see what we do, but at the heart of it, it’s five people”.
“The songs can kind of play themselves in a way, but if there’s the love and that feeling between the five of us, and there was, and it was glorious,” he told us.
