With theatrical heavyweights Christine Jones and Steven Hoggett on board this was always going to be an essential piece of theatre.

I remember well when Hail To Thief was released in 2003. I went to see Radiohead on that tour in Dublin, at the Olympia Theatre, as all the UK gigs had already sold out when I got through. It was absolute magic. Four Tet was the support that night and it is strange to think how Kieron Hebdon’s career has evolved since then, now hanging out with Skrillex and Fred Again like a cool older uncle.

The part of the Radiohead fanbase that was desperately hoping Kid A was a phase latched onto first single ‘There There’ and declared it the return of proper guitars. Once the album came out it was clear that it retained a mix of sensibilities, an evolution building on the previous three albums. Lyrically, it was built around phrases that Yorke made a note of or cut out of newspapers and magazines. Many of these linked into the presidency of George Bush Jr that had begun two years previously. It was seen as a low point for progressive politics. Oh, how the intervening 22 years have made that resemble a comparative golden age.

Christine Jones was working on a version of Hamlet shortly after Hail To The Thief was released when she noticed a range of thematic similarities and overlaps in them. She continued to mull it over in the years after, convinced enough to talk to Thom Yorke about it. He was initially sceptical, but the seed was sown and he kept coming back to the idea and imagining how it might work. In 2022 work began proper with Jones bringing collaborator Steven Hoggett on board, the acclaimed former director of Frantic Assembly who created movement for the Green Day musical American Idiot and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child among many others.

I got to watch the end product on the final day of the current scheduled run at the RSC’s Stratford Theatre. It seems unthinkable that it will not be given a second lease of life in some way in the future, it is as deserving of a West End run as Merchant of Venice 1936 was.

The first thing that strikes you is the bold set. At the base of the design are five cubicles where the live band each occupy a space, visible at all times yet segregated from the action. The first blurring of theatre and live gig. The booths resemble a recording studio more than a live space. Atop this is a level of staging with a number of doors and windows. the two singers who stand in for Yorke appear in the doors to perform, at other moments actors use the elevation in all sorts of inventive ways. Above this, the background is frequently projected on, at times showing speakers and amps, at others reflecting the mood of the characters or powerfully projecting the ghost of Hamlet’s father. The front of the stage is bare, except for a number of small amps that are strategically positioned around as required. They serve as platforms for actors to stand on, but also continue the blur between the theatrical and the gig experience.

At one hour and forty minutes without an interval, this is several hours under most full productions of Hamlet. It is a remarkable achievement. It serves like a greatest hits set, every moment you want in there from the play is present and all the material that has been excised or shaved away does not feel missed. What you gain instead is an absolute lightning bolt of a production. The story barrels along at pace, the movement and dance feels absolutely integrated. The imagery is bold and powerful. The band and music become an additional character.

This is not every track from Hail To The Thief in order. It is deconstructed exerts, fragments of songs creep in and fade out adding to the feeling of hallucinatory madness. Yorke has ripped up his own work and reinterpreted it, then taught a band how to perform some his and Jonny Greenwood’s favourite tricks. The production even has three of Jonny’s own special keyboards on loan that were used extensively on the album. This includes an Asaden Ondomo, a modern replica of a rare, vintage ondes martenot. At times the music forces itself to the centre, using the driving beats of several of the tracks to dictate the pace and rhythm of the dancing actors. In places the two singers carry the vocals, at others Hamlet and Ophelia sing snatches of the songs reflecting their own mental turbulence. Hamlet sings ‘Scatterbrain.’ For Ophelia it is the opening of ‘Sail To The Moon,’

“I sucked the moon
I spoke too soon
And how much did it cost?
I was dropped from
Moonbeams
And sailed on shooting stars”

What makes a lot of the movement and music more remarkable is that a large space for nightly improvisation has been kept in. Whilst a number of the dances are fixed, several key ones alter in every performance with the actors taking charge of them in the moment. Equally, the music has an element of improv. Alongside the normal sound mixer is another Tom, on tape loops. Recording elements of the music and performance and feeding them back into later scenes in distorted ways – as Hamlet has the ghost of his father haunting him, so the music haunts itself. This changes in every performance. This is reminiscent of the way Jonny Greenwood started working live during the Tent Tour for Kid A, folding captured fragments of local radio into ‘The National Anthem’ and in a range of other tricks.

Hamlet is a daunting part when there are so many great interpretations and remembered successes. Samuel Blenkin does a phenomenal job. His naturalism makes every line sound as though the thoughts have just entered Hamlet’s head and he is giving voice to them at the moment of thought. It makes for fantastic renditions of the key speeches, including “To be or not to be”. Here Hamlet says it with Ophelia present, making her more wronged and also more of an accomplice. In this production Ophelia is elevated from the periphery to the centre, there is less time for her to absent and forgotten as in the meandering full text. In the most glorious moment, she also performs her own “To be or not to be” just before taking her own life, and it is even more powerful than Hamlet doing it. Her exit, and her presence during the funeral, is simple staging but ever so clever. Paul Hilton makes for a remarkable Claudius, both devious and scheming yet human and vulnerable.

It all builds to that devasting showdown between Hamlet and Laetres. It must be a remarkable thing if you were able to watch this as your first experience of Hamlet and to not know the plot. It becomes a blood bath of Reservoir Dogs proportions. One moment had me flinch substantially in my seat with shock. With the movement and dance influencing the fight, with the pounding ending of ‘Sit down Stand Up’ providing another dimension, has Shakespeare ever felt so vital, so alive?

I have tried to get to more buzz theatre this year, having missed out on a lot in recent years. Jamie Lloyd’s ‘The Tempest’ was terrible, Jamie Lloyd’s ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ was almost perfection, Tom Hiddleston showing himself to be particularly adept at physical comedy. Elektra with Brie Larson was fascinating, a little too historically Greek to be fully enjoyable but chock full of strong moments. Hamlet Hail To The Thief is a dark and terrible mood, a clash of art and artifice, utterly human yet also removed and distant. It’s biggest success is in taking a 400-year-old text and making it totally accessible in a way not all Shakespeare succeeds in. Hail to the Thief? Hail to the Bard.