Placebo and the RSC Join Forces for The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui

28-01-26

The Royal Shakespeare Company has announced a striking new collaboration for its 2026 season, with Placebo composing original music for a new production of Bertolt Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui. The production will star Mark Gatiss, a double Olivier Award-winner, in the title role and will premiere at the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon from Saturday 11 April to Saturday 30 May 2026, with a press night on Tuesday 21 April.

Directed by Seán Linnen in a new version by Stephen Sharkey, this marks the first time The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui has been staged by the RSC. It also represents Placebo’s first major theatre collaboration, arriving in the same year the band marks the 30th anniversary of their self-titled debut album.

Written in 1941 while Brecht was in exile, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui is a thinly veiled allegory of Adolf Hitler’s ascent to power, transposed to the criminal underworld of Chicago during the Great Depression. Brecht framed the play as a “gangster spectacle”, charting how fear, economic instability and moral compromise allow authoritarianism to take root. The warning was explicit then and remains uncomfortably resonant now.

At the centre of the story is Arturo Ui, a small-time crook with outsized ambition. As the nation struggles, Ui and his associates exploit chaos and desperation, offering protection that quickly turns into control. What begins as back-alley deals escalates into something far more insidious, as Ui’s influence seeps into markets, politics and the law. The play’s central question is brutally simple: how does power take hold, and who enables it?

Mark Gatiss takes on the role of Ui, bringing to the part a career defined by precision, intelligence and range across stage and screen. His casting places a performer known for both wit and darkness at the heart of a production that demands clarity rather than caricature.

The involvement of Placebo adds a distinctive new dimension. One of the most influential alternative British bands of the last three decades, Placebo have sold over 14 million albums worldwide and released eight studio albums to date. Their 1996 debut album arrived as a stark counterpoint to Britpop, reshaping the sound and attitude of British guitar music and influencing generations of artists that followed. They have since achieved six UK top ten albums and collaborated with figures including David Bowie, Robert Smith and Michael Stipe.

Their most recent album, Never Let Me Go, topped charts across Europe, including Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands. That body of work makes their move into theatre notable, not as a stylistic detour but as an extension of long-standing thematic concerns around alienation, power and identity.

Brian Molko and Stefan Olsdal described the collaboration as both an honour and a creative challenge, noting the urgency of Brecht’s themes in the present day. They spoke of approaching the score by engaging with the psychology of the outsider, drawing on ideas of power, moral decay and social fracture. The music will be performed live on stage throughout the run, integrating directly into the dramatic fabric of the production.

For director Seán Linnen, the partnership is central to the production’s intent. He has spoken openly about the necessity of responding artistically to the current political climate, arguing that Arturo Ui is uniquely positioned to interrogate the present moment. In his view, Placebo’s music, described as expansive, darkly seductive and theatrical, is integral to Brecht’s vision, where music is never decorative but confrontational.

This production also reinforces the RSC’s commitment to new work and bold reinterpretation. Supported by the Hawthornden Foundation and The Drue and H.J. Heinz II Charitable Trust, with the RSC Acting Companies supported by The Gatsby Charitable Foundation, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui sits firmly within the Company’s tradition of politically engaged theatre.

For Matinee listeners, the announcement carries additional resonance. Hearing Placebo’s work translated into a live theatrical score offers a rare opportunity to experience that musical language in a new context, shaped by story, space and performance rather than the album or arena stage.

Brecht famously insisted that the rise of tyrants was not inevitable but enabled. This production, bringing together the RSC, Placebo and Mark Gatiss, places that idea front and centre. It does not ask audiences to look backwards in comfort, but to recognise the mechanisms of power as they unfold, again and again, in different forms.

The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui will play at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, from 11 April to 30 May 2026.

Get tickets from the official site HERE