'Hamlet Hail to the Thief' review — Shakespeare/Radiohead mash-up is an atmospheric rush

Read our review of Hamlet Hail to the Thief, now in performances at the Barbican to 23 January 2027.

Summary

• Christine Jones, Steven Hoggett and Thom Yorke have adapted Shakespeare's Hamlet, fusing the Bard's work with Radiohead's 2003 album Hail to the Thief
• The production has been skilfully filleted by Jones and Hoggett, who have previously worked together on Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
• Samuel Blenkin gives an astounding performance as Hamlet
• Performances of Hamlet Hail to the Thief continue at the Barbican through January 2027

It's not often you complain about a production of Hamlet being too short, but this brisk version adapted and directed by Christine Jones and Steven Hoggett, and soundtracked by Thom Yorke's reworking of Radiohead's 2003 album, is one such occasion.

That's partly because it's so well done, so atmospheric and vibrant, that you wish you could experience more of it. But also because, inevitably, many of the play's greatest moments and lines are excised in the 100-minute rush, meaning there's a rare sense of anticlimax come the final moments.

What does remain has been skilfully filleted by Jones and Hoggett - whose other collaborations (as designer and choreographer) include Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - to tell the story lucidly and with real dramatic momentum. On a set that resembles a huge recording studio, Hamlet (Samuel Blenkin) and Claudius (Paul Hilton) are introduced in a thrash of drums and electric guitars, black coats and leather boots.

Horatio (Alby Baldwin), afforded surprising prominence given the brevity, tells Hamlet of his father's apparition, which subsequently appears in a huge, fragmented projection on the towering back wall. From this moment on, Blenkin's emo-esque Hamlet is imbued with real venom and his repudiation of Gertrude (Claudia Harrison) and then Ophelia (Ami Tredrea) feels laced more with nihilism than madness. In a really nice twist, Tredrea repeats "to be or not to be" just before she dies, poignantly meditating on the lure of sleep.

The killing of Polonius (Nicolas Tennant) meanwhile is done not behind an arras but with a clever and blood-spattered slip of a blade - one of several deftly choreographed touches throughout. Another is the balletic rendering of The Mousetrap (though sadly all the Players dialogue is cut), and a truly memorable funeral scene, whereby Gravedigger Merryl Ansah climbs out singing "Scatterbrain" and then the company dance gracefully round Ophelia's grave before Hamlet and Laertes (Brandon Grace) set to. The climactic duel is also done beautifully through movement even if the lack of Fortinbras' epilogue means it all ends rather sharply.

Yorke's music fits seamlessly with the play and never feels shoe-horned in. Mostly sung up high by vocalists Ed Begley and Meg Hill, or sometimes by the company (including Ophelia's moving rendition of "Sail to the Moon"), the songs provide an evocative, eerie soundscape. Hail to the Thief may have been conceived in the era of George W. Bush but it feels deeply resonant in these fractured, existentially anxious times.

But the final word belongs to the cast. There are some excellent interpretations, from Baldwin's engaging Horatio to Harrison's empathetic Gertrude and Hilton's wiry, shrewd - and, it has to be said, Thom Yorke-resembling - Claudius. And Blenkin's Hamlet is among the best I've seen. He's a natural fit, with sometimes strained, sometimes surprising intonation (he repeats "the play's the thing" with palpable joy) and an air of youthful, angst-ridden stubbornness. Hamlet, it transpires, is a very Radiohead kind of guy.

Hamlet Hail to the Thief is at the Barbican to 23 January 2027. Book Hamlet Hail to the Thief tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk

Photo credit: Hamlet Hail to the Thief (Photos by Manuel Harlan)