Placebo make theatre debut with score for Brecht production by Royal Shakespeare Company | Pop and rock

Alt-rockers Placebo are set to collaborate with the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) by scoring a new production of Bertolt Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui.

Written in 1941, the play is about a Chicago mobster who seeks to control the city’s vegetable trade through corruption, intimidation and violence: a clear allegory of how Adolf Hitler had swept to power during the 1930s.

Mark Gatiss, known for The League of Gentlemen, Sherlock and more, will play Ui, in his RSC debut. It will premiere on 11 April at the Swan theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon.

It is the first theatre work by Placebo, who had a series of major hits in the late 1990s onwards with their muscular gothic rock and sometimes sexually provocative songwriting, including the Top 5 singles Nancy Boy, Pure Morning and You Don’t Care About Us. They have steadily released eight studio albums, with the most recent, Never Let Me Go, giving them their highest ever album chart placing at No 3.

The band’s Brian Molko and Stefan Olsdal said they were “very honoured and excited” by the collaboration, adding: “Thematically, this cautionary tale from history feels more urgent and prescient than ever, and its relevance to today’s world is very chilling. The creative process for this project was very different for us, sometimes akin to shooting arrows in the dark. So we tried to connect with the psychology of the outsider, as well as taking inspiration from themes of power, alienation and moral decay – which are at the core of this play.”

The production’s director, Seán Linnen, described Placebo’s score as “glitteringly expansive, darkly seductive and deeply theatrical”.

Linnen also highlighted the play’s resonances with today’s political reality. “As the threat from the far-right grows daily at home and abroad, it is our job as artists to speak up and out. There is no other play that interrogates the political moment we are living through more than this one.”

Despite being written in 1941, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui wasn’t premiered until after Brecht’s death, in 1958. Recent productions have included one with Lenny Henry in the title role at London’s Donmar Warehouse in 2017.