Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The play’s not really the thing in Aviva Studios’ Hamlet Hail to the Thief, which uneasily fuses Shakespeare’s tragedy with Radiohead’s 2003 album. The join is about as seamless as the production’s clunky title indicates: the two jockey for position, with Radiohead often coming out ahead.Still, sparks do fly from the friction. Radiohead’s twitchy, ticking techno beats, which underscore much of the action, suggest time out of joint and anxiety ratcheting up in a state where a shifty new king has acquired his dead brother’s throne and wife. As Prince Hamlet’s suspicions of King Claudius rise, songs erupt into sudden frenzies. Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke has orchestrated the album as a soundtrack that sends whines and wails through the drama like sirens. Lyrics dovetail with the drama to echo Hamlet’s mounting mania, as in the opening “2 + 2 = 5” which ominously announces “It’s the devil’s way now”, or “There’ll be no more lies” repeated in “Where I End and You Begin”.Instead of the songs festooning the play, however, it often feels like the atomised scenes are used as segues between the music. Running at an unusually brisk 105 minutes, the production offers a medley of abridged Hamlet greatest hits. Overly insistent music reinforces every monologue with a background drone, the album rumbling impatiently, always trying to come through.Paul Hilton’s Claudius often rocks away to the songs, at the centre of groups of dancers. He is a fantastically slippery, swaggering overlord, slinking across the stage like an oil slick. He is grotesquely carnal, too, licking Gertrude’s neck and opening his mouth as wide as a snake to embrace her.Samuel Blenkin’s Hamlet is every bit “the poor wretch”. Pallid and gawky, with a quivering voice, he seems at war with his own body, torn between living and dying. When he says “What a piece of work is a man”, he speaks as if not recognising himself by that description.Lighting designer Jessica Hung Han Yun often frames characters in cage-like boxes, but these more intimate scenes clash with the generally maximalist staging. Shards of light dagger through the darkness while smoke and dust billow across Will Duke’s immense video projections. The grief-soaked scenography by design collective AMP and production designer Sadra Tehrani is all monochromatic and melancholy. And monotone: oppressively bleak, it steamrollers the richness of the play so there are no subtleties or pockets of light. Directors Steven Hoggett and Christine Jones telescope the production on the psychodrama between Hamlet and Claudius. But turning the play into a brash, scrappy revenge thriller leaves multiple casualties. Queen Gertrude all but vanishes, along with Hamlet’s friendship with Horatio and romance with Ophelia. Her descent into suicidal despair is rushed, although her repeating his “To be or not to be” reminds us that her fate is tethered to his nihilism.Charging through the plot creates a manic rhythm that scrambles clarity. The deaths in the final climax become a blurred brawl, without clear confessions and vengeance. It might illustrate how catastrophically everything unravels, but the sprint finish leaves us unmoved. It’s a dizzyingly — rather than dazzlingly — propulsive show. “The rest is silence”, Horatio tells us when it’s all over. If only Yorke let us hear it.★★★☆☆To May 18, factoryinternational.org; then Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, June 4-28, rsc.org.uk
