Alt-rock band Placebo is set to make its theatre debut by scoring a new Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) production of Bertolt Brecht's The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui. The play, written in 1941, is an allegory of Adolf Hitler's rise to power, following a Chicago mobster who uses corruption and violence to control the city's vegetable trade.
Mark Gatiss, known for The League of Gentlemen and Sherlock, will play the title role in his RSC debut. The production opens on 11 April at the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon.
Placebo, formed in the 1990s, have released eight studio albums, with their latest, Never Let Me Go, reaching No 3 on the UK album chart. Band members Brian Molko and Stefan Olsdal said they were 'very honoured and excited' by the collaboration, noting the play's themes of power, alienation and moral decay feel 'more urgent and prescient than ever'.
Director Seán Linnen described Placebo's score as 'glitteringly expansive, darkly seductive and deeply theatrical'. He added: 'As the threat from the far-right grows daily at home and abroad, it is our job as artists to speak up and out.'
