Radiohead, Grand Theft Auto and an American barbecue — Hamlet enters its weirdest phase yet

This month a rather unusual theatre show will open in Manchester. Hamlet Hail to the Thief is a collaboration between the Royal Shakespeare Company, Factory International and the art-rock musician Thom Yorke, which fuses Shakespeare’s four-centuries-old tragedy with a live reworking of Radiohead’s 2003 album. The adaptation, co-directed by Christine Jones and Steven Hoggett, echoes the recording’s dystopian themes, with Elsinore as a surveillance state in which “paranoia reigns”.

“The time is out of joint . . . ”, proclaims the teaser for Hamlet Hail to the Thief (accompanied by a dissonant Radiohead chord). And what is the thinking person to do when “the time is out of joint” and there is “something rotten in the state”? When we feel that we are being “cozened” — cheated — by tho...
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