Critics give Hamlet Hail to the Thief three to five stars in London

Hamlet Hail to the Thief had its London press night at the Barbican Theatre on 12 November, and the critics' stars run from three to five. Debbie Gilpin gives it five for BroadwayWorld, and she and Theo Bosanquet of London Theatre both rank Samuel Blenkin's Hamlet among the finest they have seen. Thom Yorke created the show, a Royal Shakespeare Company co-production, with the directors Christine Jones and Steven Hoggett. Yorke orchestrated the songs of Radiohead's 2003 album Hail to the Thief for it, and the Barbican's listing says Radiohead do not play in it. It runs until 23 January 2027.

Alexis Petridis, The Guardian's head rock and pop critic, wrote on it as a music piece with no stars, and finds it works far better than he had feared. Yorke, Petridis reads in the programme notes, had serious doubts about Jones's idea at first, and came round partly because he saw the album as the record that got away². Petridis says the weaker songs are dropped altogether.

Andrzej Lukowski of Time Out, who gives four stars, came away from the 2025 premiere in Manchester in two minds and likes the London staging far more. He suspects it was reworked and tightened in between, and thinks some new incidental music, not from the album, has been added. He did not hear “A Punch Up at a Wedding” or “We Suck Young Blood”, and was happy without them. Nick Curtis of The Standard, also on four, remembers the music further forward at the premiere.

In Lukowski's account few songs come whole, though “2 + 2 = 5” opens the show complete and ends with Blenkin bawling a line through a loudspeaker. The final duel, as Lukowski describes it, has no words at all, only deaths under strobe light to the electronic breakdown of “Sit Down. Stand Up.” Merryl Ansah's gravedigger climbs out of the earth singing part of “Scatterbrain”. Petridis hears “The Gloaming” over Ophelia's funeral, and the opening verses of “Sail to the Moon” in place of her lines about herbs and flowers in the mad scene.

Bosanquet's main complaint is that it is too short, with an ending that falls flat. Sarah Crompton of WhatsOnStage gives three stars to an evening she enjoyed for its noise and energy but doubts means much; the cuts keep the plot moving and lose most of the poetry. The independent critic Liam O'Dell, also on three, could not make out the lyrics.

Writing in German for the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Marion Löhndorf grants that the pairing could have failed and says it did not, and reads it as a play about the abuse of power. Lukowski warns that anyone hoping for Andrew Scott's Hamlet, or for Radiohead's O2 nights last year, may come away let down.

The starred notices

Alexis Petridis (The Guardian, 13 November) and Marion Löhndorf (Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 14 November) gave no stars. The Times (Dominic Maxwell, online 12 November) and The New York Sun (Alexander Larman, 15 November) are behind paywalls; the Times headline calls the show taut, and the New York Sun's standfirst a largely successful experiment.

Songs the critics name, and where they come

Numbered for reference, not in running order. Lukowski (Time Out) did not hear “A Punch Up at a Wedding” or “We Suck Young Blood”.

The company, as the reviews name it

Barbican Theatre, London, 31 October 2026 to 23 January 2027; press night 12 November.