Stage Western emphasises politics rather than drama

Harold Pinter Theatre

It is always asking for trouble from the critics when you adapt a well-loved film for the stage.  And so it proved with High Noon. Some critics, including one giving a 2 star review, found the stage show came off a poor second to the Oscar winning original. Others liked it in its own terms, enjoying Billy Crudup‘s more modern male, Denise Gough‘s stronger woman, and the shift in political message toward a more contemporary examining of why people would allow a bad person to come to power. The basic plot is the same: Will Kane is getting married and giving up his job as the town’s US marshal. News comes that a notorious killer is returning from prison on the noon train to wreak revenge on Kane, the man who put him away. None of the townspeople will help him. His Quaker wife Amy won’t stand by him either. Carl Foreman‘s original screenplay has been adapted by first time playwright but established screenplay writer Eric Roth. The critics liked the two leads’ performances, although some seemed to feel Denise Gough was too good for the part.  At least she got to sing some added Bruce Springsteen songs to considerable acclaim. There was disagreement among the reviewers about the level of tension supplied in Thea Sharrock‘s production.

[Links to full reviews are included but a number are behind paywalls and therefore may not be accessible]

5 stars ★★★★★

Gary Naylor for BroadwayWorld confessed he doesn’t like Westerns and has never seen the original movie, but this stage version made him realise ‘Not all Westerns are the same.’ He credited the script but added ‘Casting is key’:  ‘Billy Crudup… catches our hero’s flawed dignity and dangerous dilemma perfectly, a quiet man unexpectedly pitched into a life or death situation as the clock, handily visible above the stage, rolls towards midday.’ He explained the fifth star: ‘I was moved. I was there in the room with Kane as he failed to find the trust of his erstwhile supporters, with Amy as she wrestled with her conscience and ultimately left admiring a man who could do what I can’t (yet) in these difficult days for the world – The Right Thing.’

4 stars ★★★★

The Guardian’s Arifa Akbar was lukewarm about it as a piece of theatre, but ‘As a debate play…it gathers a locomotive energy as it travels towards the showdown’. She noted: ‘Eric Roth’s script uses many lines from Foreman’s screenplay but fleshes out the debates on the ethical stance of a community in the face of wrongdoing and misguided American myths around immigration.’ Regarding the two stars: Billy Crudup ‘manages to hold up the part on stage as an upstanding, earnest and increasingly desperate man. Gough makes her part grittier and more modern than that of her film counterpart, Grace Kelly. The pair are convincing as a couple although their narrow characterisation hems in the full scale of their abilities.’ She concluded: ‘For all its early stiffness, it builds in momentum and there are moving moments. Ultimately, the political message speaks loudest, harnessing the McCarthyist fear of then and the Trumpian terror of today.’

3 stars ★★★

For WhatsOnStage’s Sarah Crompton,  it was ‘careful and elegantly enjoyable, but lacks that emotional punch’. She explained: ‘the central debates of the film, the agonised wrestling with what is truly right, are slightly muted here as the play tracks Kane’s quest for support from various groups of townspeople… He keeps saying he must do what he must do, but the moral thrust of the film is somehow missing’

The Times’ Clive Davis liked the way Billy Crudup ‘delivers a more ambivalent version of an unassuming man who is trying to do his duty… His voice is often jittery, his gestures stiff-limbed.’ However: ‘Roth doesn’t quite persuade you that this is a story that needs to be remade. If you haven’t seen the movie, you may well find the play’s storyline a tad one-dimensional. Anyone, on the other hand, who is familiar with the original will struggle to shake off memories of a showdown in New Mexico.’ He praised the look of the show: ‘Tim Hatley’s set design, with its sliding wooden-slat walls, evokes a fragile, dusty township. But while a clock hanging above the stage ticks away as we wait for the villainous Frank Miller to arrive on the noon train, the climactic shoot-out looks perfunctory.’

Alice Saville of The Independent said: ‘Billy Crudup lends a quiet integrity to the role of … Kane, who finds his town turns its back on him, while an impassioned Denise Gough throws his values into question as his pacifist new wife.’ She ended: ‘it doesn’t deliver either the adrenaline or the emotional punch that gives Western movies their enduring power.’

Julia Rank of LondonTheatre thought the same: ‘Crudup brings gravitas and quiet dignity to the role, as well as a touch of delicacy (he could have been ruthless in his approach, but he wasn’t), though he lacks a big stirring speech to bring everything together.‘ As for his co-star, ‘Gough conveys her quiet strength in a relatively underwritten part… and she has the chance to showcase her singing ability with songs by Bruce Springsteen and others.’

For Time Out’s Andrjez Lukowski, the film adaptation ’doesn’t quite cut it on the stage. Magnetic as Crudup is, and solid as the gunplay bits are, none of it can negate the fact that the story ends weirdly abruptly – it needs a much longer final act. Gough is great, but she’s playing an amped up version of a relatively small character and the part doesn’t really justify an actor of her towering abilities…there’s a feeling that some of the songs etc are just there to find Gough something to do.’

2 stars ⭑⭑

The Telegraph’s Dominic Cavendish was disappointed: ‘Billy Crudup and Denise Gough can’t match Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly on screen, and Thea Sharrock’s stylish and yet grit-free production stokes only fitful tension.’ He analysed the many ways the stage adaptation is inferior to the classic film, including the ending: ‘the big gun-slinging denouement, albeit rushed in the film, here lacks the requisite adrenal quality – less high noon, more morning elevenses.’

Critics’ average rating  3.3⭑

Value Rating 34  (Value rating is the Critics’ average rating divided by the typical ticket price)

High Noon can be seen at the Harold Pinter Theatre until 6 March 2026. Buy tickets directly from highnoontheplay.com

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