I’ve been seeing posters all around the city of a Radiohead and Shakespeare mashup. Hamlet, the play that borne ‘to be or not to be,’ a frenzied study of political corruption, grief, and madness paired with Radiohead’s seminal skittish album Hail to the Thief.
Intrigued by the collaboration, and skeptical of a gimmick, I approached the doors of Aviva Studios carefully, but open. What I found through there exceeded my expectations truly.
The script is adapted from Shakespeare’s original, four hundred year old lines animated by the direction of Christine Jones and Steven Hoggett.
Lines are spliced, distilled, spilled out from the stage. Weaved together with Radiohead chords, music is the foundation on which this frenetic house is built, the narrative bubbling around Hamlet (played by Samuel Blenkin) and Ophelia’s (Ami Tredea) realisation of the entanglement of lies and corruption that weave around them, their inability to position themselves within this chaos.
Blending movement and mania, Thom Yorke’s (Radiohead) orchestration is meticulously produced. Speaking to The Observer, Yorke spoke of his initial reaction to this proposal, of Hamlet being ‘sacrosanct, untouchable,’ yet a small seed planted in his head.
By deconstructing and rebuilding songs, chords, notes into a score that extracts and refines a sonic conversation with the script, this production is a testament to collaboration and reinvention.
As if drawn by a thread, atomised actors hung suspended in their isolation, drawing in haunting, melodic vocals from Ed Begley and Megan Hill. Quickly, seamlessly, they swarmed together in a loud cymbalic chorus. Jess Williams’ choreography and direction excitingly has movement at the character’s core. It is rooted in their core, clapping to exclamations, jittering to the minutiae of breath.
The first scene in which we are introduced to Hamlet and Ophelia as a couple was outstanding. Moving in sweet symbiosis, these playful lovers emerge, positioning themselves to us, before it all falls away. “O, that this too, too solid flesh would melt / Thaw and resolve itself into a dew.” (Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 2).
Blenkin is a brilliant actor. He gave us a Hamlet that was at once a mischievous and playful adolescent, the next a man consumed, a man at war. Honourable mentions to Brandon Grace who played Laertes and Alby Baldwin’s Horatio, also. They distilled emotion into every word, every movement, every breath. I hung on firmly to Horatio’s closing scene.
Hamlet Hail to the Thief doesn’t take itself too seriously either. Splicing of the script has allowed for humour to seep out, eliciting a steady stream of laughter from the audience. I did feel, however, that what this production hails in its design, direction, and innovative animation of Shakespeare, it lost in intimacy. Focused primarily on the lighting, the music, the acting, I felt like the intimacy that comes with more simplistic productions of Shakespeare fell away.
Lighting design from Jessica Hung Han Yu was innovative, and as much as it was grand, soft, clever subtleties demonstrated care and imagination. Picture Hamlet on stage, delivering a maddening speech, and out of your peripheral vision you see his shadow, climbing up the wall of the theatre, crawling over the audience, then vanishing like a ghost. Or Ophelia’s grief-stricken soliloquy accompanied by a physical manifestation of white noise creeping over the set.
Hamlet Hail to the Thief is a study in co-creation. It breathed new life into sacrosanct Shakespeare. It did what art should do, open itself up, to quote Yorke, to ‘uproot itself.’
‘Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t’ (Polonius, Act 2, Scene 2).
Hamlet Hail to the Thief is at Manchester’s Aviva Studios until the 18th of May and the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford from 4-28 June. Tickets can be found here and here.
Rehearsal photographs by Manuel Harlan.
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