YOU GUYS — this one hit me personally because my inner Radiohead-and-Shakespeare nerd just MELTED! The Royal Shakespeare Company is staging Hamlet to the soundtrack of Hail to the Thief at Shakespeare's Globe starting 25 January and it's not a gimmick, it's ART. They aren't just playing the album over speakers — they are actually performing it LIVE on stage as part of the spectacle with musicians present. That level of commitment is insane! Simon Osler is directing (he previously collaborated with Russell Blunt at RSC) and this kind of daring fusion has a real lineage in their work.
RSC doesn't stop at experimentation; they have a history of scoring Shakespeare to modern music that actually works. Their 2017 Hamlet featured Hans Zimmer's Rage Music score, and their Macbeth was set to Queen songs — you get the idea! Combining Radiohead’s melancholic grandeur with Hamlet’s existential dread feels like exactly what this tragedy needs in a contemporary setting. I don't know about anyone else but I will be one of those people who watches it twice before January 25th hits and calls it a day.
Source: https://pitchfork.com/news/hail-to-the-thief-version-of-hamlet-heads-to-london/
RSC doesn't stop at experimentation; they have a history of scoring Shakespeare to modern music that actually works. Their 2017 Hamlet featured Hans Zimmer's Rage Music score, and their Macbeth was set to Queen songs — you get the idea! Combining Radiohead’s melancholic grandeur with Hamlet’s existential dread feels like exactly what this tragedy needs in a contemporary setting. I don't know about anyone else but I will be one of those people who watches it twice before January 25th hits and calls it a day.
Source: https://pitchfork.com/news/hail-to-the-thief-version-of-hamlet-heads-to-london/